Man I would really try hard to find one in a salvage yard it would be a whole lot cheeper...and also if you other ones aren't new it will look odd but if you could find all four that match would be best...but check around.even on here in parts for sale...or post an ad in parts wanted first...most people on here are fair and great people...see if you can look up jtmiller he always has a good selection of used parts and i have bought from him and he is cool to deal with....

i called hawks and they have one for 100 + 20 shipping. im getting it ASAP

Hankook Ventus 245/45/16 Performance Tires for Camaro/Firebirds . ANYONE Know about these Tires ? I have them on my Car and they Rock ! , but I am Always Open to Suggestions of Something Better , and Perferably WHITE LETTERED TIRES in this Size . Comments >?

i'll make sure i rate the falkens. its kind of funny driving this car with a 205/65/15 used economy spare tire...it feels like i have an open differential because of the one wheel peel lol

i've never had a good experience with the hankook's they have never lasted very long on any of my vehicles...especially if you drive alot highway

dude it snowed 3' this past weekend and the falkens did great...could make them spin but i really had to try...and they went thru the snow like a plow....

There isn't any tire manufacturer that makes a raised white lettered low profile 16" or larger tire. As far as the Hankook tires, I think that they are great, I sell the **** out of them and have had no complaints yet.

The same goes with Falken tires to. I've had nothing but good replies from customers about them.

Goodyears suck ***, Michelen are way over priced, Parelli are way over rated.

For those of you that have 315's out back (like me) then I urge you to check out Sumotomo. They are not D.R. they are regular radial tires. They have a tread wear of 200 (i think) and they are alot cheaper in price.

Just my

Buy yourself a lettering pen and go over the raised back lettering with it, make your own raised white lettered tires... it's done all the time, I think that the pens were originally designed to fix raised white letters.

I've gone the other way, I have a set of drag radials that I ground all the drag radial logos off of

Thanks for the Tip man . I used a Grease Pencil on my other Cars Tires , but after a short period of time the Lettering woud just Flake off . My Old 82 Knight Rider Trans Am had 14 Inch Wheels and I ran Cooper Cobra GT Tires on it with White Lettering . Cooper does not make that tire in a bigger Size though .......

I've had pretty good luck with Dunlop SP Sport A2s. The treadwear is a bit low (though they've apparently improved the rubber compound with the A2 Plus) and they stick like glue in rain and shine. Plus they're only about $76 each.

the tires came in the mail saturday....the 255's dont look any bigger than my old 245's....im thinkin it was a waste of money to get the 255/50/16 but oh well

where did you get them?How much more were they...and what brand did you end up with?

Falken Ziex from discount tire over the internet. $74 each

btw i didnt expect them to look noticeable bigger anyway

just out of curiosity did you check out edgeracing.com for that same tire?...did you mount them yet?if so what do you think

i dont want to check out any other site to see if i could have bought them cheaper lol...its too late

today i purchased a Z28 wheel from Hawks for $100 shipped. they guarantee everything except for the clearcoat on the wheel so i hope it looks decent. it should come within 3-5 days, then i will get them mounted

i will be sure to update when i get them mounted

I was just wondering because i had suggested edge racing before and was wondering if they treated you badly or something....thats where i got mine for $66 a piece...its just a few dollars less but i hope your happy with them...i really enjoy mine especially when its raining...I dont slide and spin

yeah i tried edge racing and they were cheaper but since discount tire was offering free shipping at the time, edge racing turned out to be more costly

here are some pics, do they need to be mounted in a certain direction?

Yes there's a red dot that should be visable with them mounted, and the tires will have an arrow and "rotation" written on the side.

yeah thats right..just put the part of the tread that looks like an arrow toward the front of the car all the way around....that rim protector on mine was pretty tough to pop on the rim but after letting the air out and back in and some adittional persuasion they went right on....

well that kinda sucks for the people at discount tire who are going to mount them for me. i have no way of mounting them, and they wont let me do it at school so i gotta pay discount tire to do it.

oooo right!!! today was a good day...i got the wheel in the mail. its kinda crappy but im not suprised. the clear is all spotted but from a distance its not noticeable. I got my tires mounted with no problems. damn these tires have awesome traction. i cant do a burnout and the wheels just barely slip when it hits 2nd (a VAST improvment). even when i turn the wheels and stomp it to do a 360 they grip very well. im finally able to test out the new panhard rod....it helped a lot. the back doesnt oversteer as badly

here are some pics of the wheel from Hawks, im gonna get pics of the tires mounted as soon as im done washing it







not very noticeable from a distance:

Good deal man, I love it when people actually follow through on posts and show pics of peoples advice in action Glad you like the tires!!!

i parked the car backwards in the garage so i dont have any rear pics but heres an idea of what they look like

I'm debating those Ziex tires or these
Tires

I know someone who works for Toyo, so depending on if I can get a deal, we'll see...any thoughts on the toyo's?

I had 15"s on my truck. i think it was 255/50/15. They were the Cooper Cobra GT's. Looked good with the raised white lettering until i let a girl drive it, she curbed it, tore up the tire pretty bad.

I'm too lazy to retype this twice in the same week. A little late for the OP, but it might help some folks.

[quote]Here's a review I wrote for those tires on a Maxima forum not quite two years ago. Still have those tires on that car, closing in on 20,000 miles with no real problems. There's a slight vibration that could be from the tires either from wear or loss of a small balance weight.

That thread can be found here. The following is from the second of three pages. And 30k miles still looks like a good projected lifespan.

Norm, noplace do you actually say what tires those are...

Falken Ziex ZE512's

Could've sworn it was outside the quote somewhere . . .

Norm

well the car is broken again!! the thing is axle hopping like mad on the passenger side, even with moderate acceleration. im hoping its the trailing arms, but it could be the torque arm. haha its just one thing after another with this car. I think this happened because the new tires have so much traction and the car has a shift kit...something's got to give. worst part is i busted a seal on my floor jack so i gotta try to back the thing up ramps so i can get under it.

I just put Falken 512's on my Z and it felt like a differrent car. I saw the best price at www.vulcantire.com.

They are pretty decent tires, and the performance seems to stay with them as they age. They aren't ST-autocross tire or drag radial sticky, but even after 20k+ miles they still (quietly) grip more than well enough in the turns to embarass the folks who think they are cornering hard . . .

Norm

Just scrollin thru this thread, and I've found the set of tires I will be buying in the next month or two. Ive heard of the Falkens before, and it seems to be the popular choice here. For the price, it'd be hard to beat.

wow i started this thread didnt i!! ive had the falkens for quite some time now, they are pretty good tires, but i cant give an opinion about treadwear since i put 5k miles on it a year maximum. plus i never measured the tread depth when i bought them.

btw, what felt like wheel hop turned out to be a broken trans mount with further investigation. i replaced it with a poly one, havent had problems since.

im getting new wheels this spring if i can find a way to insure it and the beater car. i already have the tires, they are Firestone Firehawk Wide Ovals (285/40/17 in the back). if i cant afford to insure it this summer i might end up selling it...whats the point in having the car if i cant drive it. i could use the money too. ive paid enough in storage fees this winter

Im trying to keep the car as stock as possible. I searched the forum for the chrome IROC wheels and the thread was in there. Im still trying to find the cheapest place to get the chrome IROCs, but I ran across an ad for the falkens this morning, and here I am reading about them. Must be fate...

Sumitomos suck period.

I have them on my Formula, cheap and it shows.

However, I got Kumho ECSTA AST's on the GTA and am quite happy, they do everything well, not great but definitely decent for the money.

Better wet tire and higher tread rating than 711 or 712's and dont have the sidewall squishies that they exhibit either.

later
Jeremy

kumhs 711's are good for the price.. i got 4, 245/45-17's for about $85 each, shipped to hawaii(not cheap).. but i would not recommend them.. they suck ***.. with 359rwtq, the kumho's mounted on heavy 17inch rims, i could break them loose in 2nd, at 1700rpm.. i will never buy them ever again.. now i'm running factory s-10 good year eagles(235/55-16's with a lighter rim) and i cant break them loose while hammering it in 2nd unless i shift into it.. spend your money wisely

I am runnin on 4 Hankook Ventus HR 2's


245 -50 - R16 - 97H

Great Tires for a Formula . Cornering and Traction are Exceptional . No Complaints from me ....

On tirerack.com the wet traction rating of the Kuhmos is listed as 'N/A'. Ive had them on my car for years and really like them, but when it's wet all bets are off. They are fine driving in water at highway speeds, but you never know where your butt will end up if cornering fast in the rain. They bite good when they are hot, but they are loose as hell when they're wet or cold. I've got about 25,000 miles on my current set and they are still in pretty darn good shape. Had to replace one as a knot developed on the sidewall. (Manufacturing defects are more common on these tires than most)(Korean quality control). For the money, I recommend them, and will probably keep putting them on all my sporty type cars for as long as I can get them.

another thing to consider is straight line traction as opposed to cornering traction. I agree with 5678ta above that you could do better than the kuhmos traction wise if your a squirt racer. They work best in the twisties.

Wow, I guess I’ll be the oddball here… I ended up with a set of both the 711’s and 712’s (one was in a set of 245/50/16 and the other in 275/40/17), specifically after the great reviews everyone (not only here) seems to give them, and I would have to rank them as absoutly the WORST tires I’ve ever owned.

On the car with the 17’s (my ’97 WS6) they were just atrocious, traction nowhere, straight line or in the turns, it was like the car was on ball bearings. I was actually disappointed for about 5 minutes when after about 6 months I got a big cut in one of them, and then realized “hey, I don’t have to replace it with the same thing to match the others, just ditch them all…” I put, original for the car GSC’s back on the front (I took them off with about 4K miles on them when the car was new to put some Nitto 555r’s on the back), and a pair of brand new, old school Comp TA ZR’s on the back (I picked them up somewhere for cheap and stored them in the basement wrapped in plastic bags so they were in OK shape).

On the formula (the 245/50/16’s) they weren’t awful, but they also weren’t better then the 16y/o (at the time) original goodyear gatorback ZR’s that were on the car when I bought it (at that point super hard and I actually felt they were kind of scary to drive). I’ve had dozens of other 15 and 16” tires on that car, including some old school eagle GT+4’s, ST’s, radial TA’s, BFG DR’s (the absolute worst in the rain, I’ve had times that I couldn’t keep the back end behind me at 35mph in the rain), some McCreary dirt track tires (if you haven’t noticed I’m not shy about running drag tires on the street, and even at an autox, FWIW, if it wasn’t for the bias ply on the back/radial on the front weirdness, these are KILLER tires, great at the dragstrip, handle well, and get this, work great in bad weather, even snow), a couple sets of bfg R1’s (scary in the rain and surprisingly not as good as you’d expect a sticky tire like this to be at the dragstrip) even some retreaded Goodyear GTII’s (not sure what they were retreaded with but they were better drag tires then most of the DR’s). Out of all that and more, I’d rank the Kumho’s as either even or one step over the 16y/o ZR’s, which I’d rank as last on that car. The the Kumho’s didn’t feel as good handling wise, but also didn’t have the scary tendancy that the old ZR’s did to kick out on shifts. Though the old ZR’s were actually better/faster at the dragstrip once they got warm.

Tires I’ve liked…

I have to say that the Nitto 555r’s are the best street tires I’ve ever owned for the back of a car like these. They work fine in the rain, but really shine in the dry and the fact that they hook MUCH better then other tires makes them last longer and eliminates all but the most wanted of throttle oversteer (that car has had 4.10’s and a 6 speed in it most of the time I’ve had it).

The Pep Boys Futura Ultra Z’s (no, I’m not kidding) are probably in second place. They are not _the absolute best_ in any one category, but they do everything well and nothing stupid, they’re competent everywhere and they are really the next best thing to a drag radial at the drag strip, oh, and they look great, they’re beefier with what looks like more tread then other similar sized tires. The old Comp TA’s on my WS6 are actually every bit as good if not better when brand new, but since they don’t make them anymore…

I actually don’t mind the Yokohama AS430’s that the TA that I just bought has on it. They seem to be very competent, decent handling tires, the only real bad thing that I can say about them is that the straight line traction is very binary… they’re stick really well till they start slipping and then they go up in smoke…

I happened to be doing a search on the Falkens and ran across this thread again. Its been a while, but thaught there was some good info in it to bring it back to life. I've had the Falken Ziev 512's on my IROC since spring 07, and I think they are awesome for the price. I haven't had any problems with traction, or anything else for that matter. I was so impressed, I was searching them to put on my GTA wheels to go on my Buick. They have exceeded my expectations. to all that recommended these in the first place

lol this thread is so old, they dont even sell the Falken Ziex ZE-512 anymore

those were the tires i ended up getting

Yeah I found this thread and did some research, and I guess they replaced the ZE-512 with the ZE-912, which is an upgraded version allegedly.

Discount tire still sells them

Those of you that have Falken tires, do they seem to be narrow compared to other brands the same size? I need new tires for a GTA which call for a 245/50r16. Wondering if I need to go one size wider to compensate for them being skinny tires?

these were 255's







if u need more views, let me know

Thanks for the pictures! Those look pretty good. The 245's probably would look a little skinny.

I got impatient and already ordered tires earlier today. I ended up getting some Cooper tires. They were even cheaper than the Falkens and are an american made tire. I got the 245's so I hope they end up looking OK.

I'll post how I like them once installed. They were $76 each through tireteam.com.