I'm not sure if this is a common problem but the rear wheels will spin on a whim on my car. Even on a strait line like at a red light, if I give the car a minorly agressive touch of gas the car starts buring out like I put the pedal all the way down. I know FR drive cars dont get great tracton, but the tires are good and my car isn't even that fast.

My other problem... the car sometimes stalls when I start backing up in revearse (the car lurches when I shift into reverse already). I'm not sure whether these two problems are caused by a really crappy rear-end or maybe just a crappy transmission.

 

You have a 350. On my old tires, I could get my tires to spin really easily with barely any gas, and thats with a 305! With my new tires, I can get a bit of tirespin at WOT off the line, not much though Then again, my motor makes like 295LB-FT torque and I have a 2.73 in the back. Yours probably makes 330-345LB-FT torque and you probably have 3.23s in the back.. a lot more torque going to the ground than on my car.

 

put some taller gears in ...youll not only spin less but youll get better gas milage and a higher top speed ... if you have the torque ... tao

 

you can also try up your rim size an inch or two depending on what u are wearing now and/or try wider tires also.

 

I guess its good to know that other people's cars do the same thing. But are these cars supposed to be able to burn out in reverse? Those rear wheels just feel so sensitive with the accelerator. I can't remember what kind of tires I have, but I'm pretty sure they aren't what they should be. And I only have skinny little 16s. Maybe I just need to drive this car more. Its been sitting in a garadge for months.

 

My best burnout so far was probably in reverse. It was in the parking lot of Oscar's pool hall. Was backing out of my parking spot when I decided to show my car off a little bit

 

I really like doing burnouts but I dont have any plates or insurance for the car yet (so getting pulled over will mean big trouble)... and since the sound of squeeling rubber attracts a lot of attention...


That reminds me... how much you guys pay for insurance (if you do at all)????

 

burn outs in reverse are a little hard on the rear end gears ... i pay 35 dollars a month for liability ins. no tickets ... cant ticket what they cant catch lol ....tao

 

There's an easy way to avoid that... it's called driving another car.

 

Yeah, people that drive without insurance **** me off to be honest. My dad was lucky he had uninsured motorist protection when some 18 year old in an SUV totalled his old Concorde. Now he drives a Lexus, but if he didn't have that extra insurance, he would've been out $9000+ because I guarantee he wouldnt have been able to get anything by suing her. So having first-hand experience kind of makes me one-sided. I got my car insured within minutes of buying my car. Hell, I'm scared to take my car to Chicago because I guess something like 1/3 of the city doesn't have insurance. That's why I usually won't volunteer to drive when my friends go downtown

Anyways, I pay $800 a year for liability, $500 deductible for comprehensive, and I believe I have uninsured motorist. Not bad for a 17 year old driving a Trans Am. My dad called the insurance company and asked what it'd be if he bought me a '96 Trans Am or Z28 and with collision (obviously on a car that new/expensive) it would've been over $3000 a year. I'm happy with my payments

Also, just for the record, I don't enjoy doing burnouts in reverse; I just did it that one time. In fact, I don't like doing burnouts often at all because since I don't have a line-lock it burns my back brakes up, and I have some nice new $370 tires on my car and don't want to waste those. My old tires though, I did em all the time I think either my rear or my trans needs to be serviced sometime soon anyways since there is play when I throw it in park. Actually, quite a bit of play. I hope its the rear end because I want to swap in a 4th gen one. If its the trans, I don't want to deal with it. Trans shifts good though, so I don't really think that's it anyways,

 

Thats actually what I'm doing

The Trans Am is sitting in my subdivision, and I'm driving my other car (92 Bonneville) everywhere till I get the Trans Am insured.

And in case your wondering.... yeah my Bonneville is the ***t!!!

Actually its kinda a piece but its sooo damn reliable I only have like 40K miles on it, so it will run forever !

Its also one of the few sedans that you can fit 6 poeple into (not that I do that or anything)

 

Care to elaborate on what you have other than "350, 4 speed auto"?

Spinning the tires on my car is pretty easy from anything under 30mph. From a stop a quick stab to 1/4 throttle will put 2 10' stripes on the road. But I can't do a burnout in reverse no matter how hard I try! I get horrendous wheel hop in reverse.

 

Yeah I had that too a few times. I don't think I was giving it full throttle though. I don't have that issue anymore.

 

your throwing all your weight to the front, on a car that already has no weight in the back.. almost any rwd can do some nasty burnouts in reverse.. so yeah thats normal :P
if for some reason your car cant.. i think somethings busted :P

 

Would better shocks or springs help even out the weight distribution?

BTW: What is the weight dist. on our cars?

(85:15)?

 

Stock Well the 350 wasn't really stock... originally had a 305.

But when I bought the car it already had the 350.

 

sounds to me you need to look into buying some real tires and possibly doing some suspension work.

 

 

that animation was great! But my car isn't lowered so... I might hold off on those for a while. I need to check out my trans and make sure that ain't shot or anything. Then I need a new muffler (as well new exhaust, but no $$$ for that), then I need new tires and wider/taller rear wheels to put them on.

some rubbers like these would do just fine


Kumho ECSTA MX

 

if your car has the same springs it came from the factory with, its lowered atleast a inch. some have more of a saggy spring drop then dropsprings..

 

oh...

So many mods... So little time and money.

I would have more of that last one if there wasn't tuition to pay for in the fall.

 

more like these...

 

and those are........... ?

I'm guessing that wet weather traction isnt going to be so good on a tire like that.

 

Those look like the new Mickey Thompson Drag Radial. But that's a bit extreme, and not recommended for real street driving. If you need a drag radial and want decent mileage and wet weather capability, the Nittos are the way to go.

Regardless, drag radials are a bit extreme. Those Kuhmo MXs are nice tires, and quite sticky too. Traction is nearly as good as Nittos drag radials

 

Honostly... I would buy the Kumhos just for sweet tread pattern.
I know a lot of guys with 2002 vettes and such will guy those same tires. Some guys just put them on the rear wheels.
The dry wheather traction is only about 5% worse but the wet road traction is way way better than the stock vette tires (did I mention they look cool too).

There's a guy at my job who has those very same tires just on the rear wheels.

 

yes, those are the new mickey thompson drags. my last truck i drove with drag radials for quite a while in the rain and dry without any problems. they were the bfg's though.

 

I'd rather have tires that grab and go. I have 235/60/R15 Mastercraft Avenger G/T 's on mine and I really like them.

 

I'm going to bet that you have tires that are dry rotted. Look really close in between the tread for some tiny cracks. Won't hold for sh*t. Dangerous to boot too in these cars.

 

Who's car are you refering to?

Does that dry rotting happen to tires that have been sitting around for long periods of time without being driven?

 

Dry-rot happens when naturally occuring moisture gets into the tire, but the tire is never driven; heating the tire enough to dissipate the built up moisture.

 

My old tires were dry-rotted too, forgot to mention that. Anyways, I have Kumho Ecsta Supra 712 P245/50ZR16's on my car now. SWEET tread pattern. I couldn't find the MX's in the 245/50ZR16 size though, where the hell are you guys finding those? I wanted em, but couldn't find them. In any case, I like my tires quite a bit, and they were only $370 installed and out the door.

 

 

Merlot - I was referring to your car.

jconrad - Dry rot has nothing to do with moisture.

Dry rot is the action of UV and ozone upon the rubber polymers.

Ozone is controlled by the manufacturers with the use of waxes which migrate to the surface of the tire as it flexes.

Tires are all manufactured with Carbon Black as the UV stabilizer. It's called a competitor as it absorbs the UV rather than the rubber polymer. It is sacrificial and eventually is used up which is why tires tend to turn grey as they age (the tire black turns grey as it is "used up").

Dry rot can occur from extended non-use with exposure to the elements and/or age. Unless you beat the tires, many on the market today will dry-rot before they wear out.

RB - Monkeyspank!

HTH somebody.

 

dupe.

 

Wow, thanks for the low-down on what causes tires to dry-rot, you should be on Jeopardy. :hail: :hail: :hail:
Seriously though, I guess even the old tire salesmen I used to talk to can learn new twists on old info.

 

Red Devil: I checked my tires actually... they look fine. No cracks that I can see. They are some brand of tire I never even heard of before:

Continental Touring Contact AS

Anybody ever heard of these????

 

Those are pretty sweet too man!

Nice tread pattern... really angry lookin.