Tire questions

[Chris_Harrison]

Alright I'll be running CAM this next year in my 96 z28. I've redone the motor with heads/cam/intake and all the bolt ons.

My concern is what tires to get. I really need drag radials but don't know how they'll perform in autocross?

Size of the rim is 17x9.5.

Will a decent drag radial be alright in autocross? This car isn't a dedicated track car but kind of a multipurpose use (although mostly for autocross). Will be street driven but definitely not my daily driver.


Any suggestions would be great! Thanks and hope everyone has a good holiday season.

Looking forward to racing!

[z28cp]

I am not very familiar with the current crop of drag radials, but my big concern would be the sidewall construction. I would suspect the sidewalls would be too soft for autocross or track use. They would be rolling over onto the sides of the tires. And, since you obviously wouldn't be running the drag radials on the front, the front to rear balance would feel very odd.

I would be looking at something like the Falken Azenis RT-615K in a 275/40-17. These seem to be a very popular tire in the CAM classes, and meet the 200 treadwear minimum.

Hope this helps.

[Whiskey11]

I am not very familiar with the current crop of drag radials, but my big concern would be the sidewall construction. I would suspect the sidewalls would be too soft for autocross or track use. They would be rolling over onto the sides of the tires. And, since you obviously wouldn't be running the drag radials on the front, the front to rear balance would feel very odd.

I would be looking at something like the Falken Azenis RT-615K in a 275/40-17. These seem to be a very popular tire in the CAM classes, and meet the 200 treadwear minimum.

Hope this helps.

I agree. I don't personally think that a set of drag radials will be either fun to autocross on, last long in autocross, or be safe to autocross on. The needs of drag racing tires are in almost 180º opposite directions from one another. Autocross requires a stiff sidewall for steering response and grip maintenance while cornering and in transitions. Drag racing requires a soft sidewall to prioritize that acceleration grip. There will have to be a compromise made somewhere. A good summer performance tire will be ok at a drag strip and a riot in autocross form. A drag radial is going to be good at the drag strip and pretty scary in an autocross. Given that your summer tires could also serve double duty as daily driver tires whereas drag radials can be a bit hectic in the rain (not that the Extreme Summer Tires are a whole lot better) and aren't as good of DD tires.

I've always heard good things about the Continental ExtremeContact DW Summer Tire as a multiuse tire. I keyed up some folks on one of the Mustang forums I'm on and they said they work pretty dang well for a tire for both track days and drags but they are still a compromise.

Me personally, if you want to be competitive in CAM (who doesn't? ) at the local level, you are going to want to be on the best 200 treadwear Extreme Summer tire you can afford. The RS3V2 is an amazing tire in the dry and a solid tire in the wet. My experience with the RS3V1's on my Mustang tells me that they wont be too shabby at the strip either if the suspension is set up correctly.