I went to the drags yesterday and got a lot of passes in but had issues hocking up. I know i had traction issues with my street tires but not as bad as i thought. A quick overview of the day was spin off the line, spin on a first to second shift, and chirp on the second to third. I did ok a bunch of 14.5's a few 14.4's and a best of a 14.3. So when i got home i ordered some nitto nt555r 245/50/R16 drag radials to help me hook up. My question is what are my chances of breaking things with the stickier tires and how much gains will i see from them?

Mods: sfc, lca, mid length headers,y pipe, no cat, single 3' exhaust, msd cap rotor wires and coil, ported plenum, Kevlar clutch

Car: 91 camaro 305 tpi, t5 manual

Thanks in advance for all your guys thoughts

 

You should be fine, just don't do 5k rpm launches.

 

Yah I was launching a 2200 to 2500 rpm on the street tires. I tried less but it bogged bad. I figured with the nitto's being the hardest of the dr's i would be ok. any gesses on the gains i could expect from the new dr's?

 

Is your car lowered? How is your LCA angle? This can affect traction too. Be prepared to break your rear end if you hook and get a good launch. I've broken two on street tires at the strip.

 

dont sidestep the clutch off the line and u will be fine

i footbrake my v6 car with a 4,500 stall converter and it cuts 1.8x 60"s on street tires and 1.7's on slicks and i have never broken the rear and it has about 4-5 years of track abuse on it

 

I personally would have went with the mickey thompson dr. I just picked up some Bf goodrich dr I will be testing soon with my track bite compound

 

Project89 what have you done to your rear suspension to get it to hook so good? My car is on the stock springs (20+ year old springs), and i was thinking of getting lcarb but I just haven't bought them yet. I was cutting a poor 2.2 60' all day at the track but the track was bad they don't take care of the track very well but its all I got.

 

i had a totaled 1le car that i swaped the rear sprinsg onto my v6 car, also swaped over the front and rear swaybars from the 1le car

besdies that i boxed the stock control arms and had a set of lcarb's and a set of c.e. 3 way adjustable rear drag shocks

at the track i would disconect one side of the front sway bar, eventually i just removed the front swaybar all together for some wieght savings

im sure the car could do 1.5/1.6 60ft but the stock rear will really start to show its weakness around that kind of 60ft time

 

the only difference i see between our suspension is you have lcarb and shocks but you have a v6 with turbo and i have a v8 tpi not quite a fair comparison.

 

305 is gonna have a hard time breaking the rear end even with a stick. Nitto 555R's wont hold a high rpm launch anyway. They are only marginally better than soft street tires.

Try them with near 28 psi first then work your way down to the teens. Mine liked high pressure but then again I'm stalled auto with LS1. NT05R's are light years better tires than 555R's but they wear faster and arent good in the rain.

 

Thanks Orr! That is very good info. I have to drive 70miles to the track so i wanted a little bit of tire life and not be to hard on the rear end. I am trying to get rid of my poor 60' times (2.2). Think lcarb will help me that much?

 

the engine shouldnt matter at all the only difference that will make is i have a little less wieght on the nose of the car and im willing to bet the nose of my car is only 20#'s lighter with all the turbo stuff added to the front

my v6 is also making alot more power then ur 305,the biggest difference is prolly going to be track prep e-town has really good track prep, the only time it sucks is if u get a bunch of fwd to run right before u do cause they all go threw the water box with street tires

 

E town with good prep will help get those tires to hook but they still may spin with higher rpm launches. Only testing will tell. LCARBS are generally helpful in lowered car applications. They will plant the tire harder and if the tire cant hold, it will spin regardless

 

he said his track prep sucks ,my old local track was e-town and is the nicest track on the east coast,sub 2second 60fts were normal for cars on street tires there

i never really pushed the launch with my v6 car since it made massive tq numbers i was to afriad to drop the 60 any more then 1.7 for fear of gernading the rear end.(speciallty with the 4:10 rear gears)
i always launched my car at about 2-4 psi of boost though it was capable of launching in the 10-13psi range

if u want to know if lcarbs will work park ur car on level ground and crawl under the car and see if the lca's are paralell to the ground , if the rear of lca is higher then the body mount side u need lcarbs

my foirst suggestion would be to get rid of those stock worn out rear springs though,and then upgrade the rear shocks, the ce shocks are about 35 bucks each from summit

 

I'm throwing some lakewood 90/10 up front this week and then testing my Bf goodrich drag radials with my own track prep compound on a back road this weekend. I'll let you guys know how it hooks with stick rear suspension and gears.