Last year I ran with my 15 inch stock rims and hard H rated touring tires. With lots of practice, I ended up with my best 60 foot around 2.27-2.30. I would like to improve that, but I have to go CHEAP on tires, so I cannot buy drag radials or slicks unless I find a screaming deal on used ones.

Now I have picked up some extra rims (no tires), so I have some options:

--Run 15 inch stock rims with the same or different used touring tires (I think 215 or 225 are the biggest I can get on the stock rim. Besides, I doubt I could find some used performance tires in 15" anywhere that are close to my size.

--Run 16 inch stock 4th gen rims with used softer V or W rated tires (225/50/16 or 225/55/16). Pretty easy to find cheap.

--Run my 17 inch HEAVY rims with super grippy brand new W rated tires. Not my favorite option. Times will suck with heavy rims and wearing out my new tires.

My local tire store has a pair of 225/50/16 Falken 326s (slightly smaller) that have about 35 percent tread left for $25 each mounted and balanced. I guess I could run the 4th gen rims with those up front and keep the 17s on the rear, swapping at the track.

Thanks for your input

Street tires are street tires when it comes to the drag strip. It is my firm belief that it doesn't matter what street tire you are on, be it high performance or crappy all season. Unless you are willing to drop the dime on real track tires (DRs or slicks) don't even bother trying to get tires that you think will be "better" at the drag strip. I say go with the 15's you already have and keep those tires and just work on driving at the track. That is the lightest and cheapest option, I believe it will get you your best times while not making your wallet any lighter.

BTW what 17s are you talking about, certainly not your centerlines being heavy...?

I pulled a whole bunch of 2.0's (Maybe 30-35) on stock Yokohama avid T4 tires (215/60/15). They're 52 bucks each on Tirerack. Soft sidewall/cheap all-season tires do surprisingly good at the dragstrip. Hell I think Neal pulled his 14.5 stock time on lame all-seasons too. Just get something cheap with a soft sidewall (60 profile or higher, and air them down to 22-25 psi). If the track has enough VHT on it, you could even get used all-seasons for ultra-cheap with maybe half the thread left on it.

I had about the same 60-foot times with the Centerlines as my 15s, but I was scared to air down the tires (no way to air them back up to get home), so I ran them really full of air. I think with less air, I could have been closer to 2.1. The best times with those 15s were with I think 20-22 psi.

My Centerlines are gone (haven't updated my sig pic). I fugged two of them up beyond repair hitting some metal plates in the road.

Now I have some heavy cast ADRs (weigh 19lbs each):



I was thinking along the lines of what JClaw said -- soft sidewall, cheap all seasons. My stock 15s are very, very hard and down to the treadbars. I believe they had a 60k mile warranty and probably have 70k on them.

The 16s aren't that much heavier and I think I could get better traction with some softer tires. The ones I mentioned aren't that expensive -- $50 for both, mounted and balanced.

I have to disagree there. I noticed a difference in 60 fts with different tires. I got my best 60 fts with Eagle GSCs: 1.97s, and worst, 2.2 - 2.3 with the Pep boys Futuras or what ever their "performance" tire is. Actually did it with 2 differnt cars, though was the same engine lol. 1 auto 1 stick.
Both cars wer very consistant the auto running 14.2 @ 95 and the stick 14.3 at 95. Got 1.97 60's with both on the GSCs.

And also on my latest car I was getting 2.2-2.3 with GoodYear Eagle.. all season performance.. forget what they were, but the Potenza RE750s got me 2.0-2.1 60 fts. And that car is annoying consistant with 14.7 @ 93 .. Doesn't matter what I do to it she still runs that. Haven't gotten to the track with the 6 speed swap yet though... hopefully this spring.

OK. That doesn't correlate with the data I've collected but if you are getting better times with certain tires than others then by all means stick with what works. I've run everything from $180 high performance yadda yadda street tires to $40 snow tires to $60 crap all seasons and my 60' times stay the same no matter what I was on.

For the most part, I think you are right. I don't want to spend a bunch on some "performance" all seasons that have a very marginal impact on my 60-foot times. I think it would be a waste to spend money on good all seasons thinking they would dramatically improve anything.

I think your use of snow tires was actually fairly wise, because those have very soft rubber. The crap all-seasons you refer to probably had soft rubber and a weaker sidewall, which aren't so good for long life and durability (something a lot of people want from an all season) but actually work in your favor at the track.

Instead of caring too much about getting a pair of tires for the strip, I might just hold out for a set of 4 decent used tires for the 16s, that way I can use them at the track or just as an extra set of wheels/tires for around town or whatever. They are the 4th gen SE 5-spokes, which I think look very nice on a 3rd gen.

The crap all seasons I'm referring to were at least 4 different sets of all seasons. One set was H rated but YEARS old and were dry rotted to heck. Another set were 580 tread wear Traction B tires that cost like $50 (my roommates old tires). These tires were so hard that after 2 summers of racing on them, you couldn't even tell that two of them had been raced on (the treadlife was still identical to the ones I didn't race on). Some old goodyears of some sort that came on my beater, some Generals that came on my black car back 4 years ago, probably some others that I am not even thinking of right now. Those are just the 4 I have used that I can think of off the top of my head. Trust me when I say I've used all manner of street tires at the track and it didn't make one whit of difference whether they were hard rubber or soft, worn out or new, all season or summer, hard sidewall or soft, etc. All in all I can think of 9 different sets of "street" tires I've used at the track including performance and snow tires in addition to the all seasons.

I agree and unless I was buying drag radials or slicks, I wouldn't put too much thought into buying a specific tire with the track in mind. I was just using what was on whatever car I had at the time... when I bought the tires on the car right now, I was more concerned with handling and wet weather traction, the GSCs were better at the track and dry weather for cornering grip.. but they were terrible in the rain, and the car is tail happy enough on dry roads.

Could also be just how different cars/suspensions react with different tires. Haven't gotten the Maxima to the track yet, hopefully later this month. I'm used to launching the other car, so this should be fun.. new learning curve with FWD.

save your money and buy some bf goodwrich dragradials. thats what i use. they hook up great. i can launch about 3500 rpms and spin about 2 feet.