15" tires for road course and autox action?

[Cannon]

LOL I searched for 15" wheels and NOTHING came up in the search!?

I'm having a tough time finding the right kind of tires. I want to use 15" steel racing wheels cause they are cheap and lightweight, and I want a nascar look to my car, and dont want to run thin sidewalls cause I want to drive the car a lot on the street. I like the biger sidewall look too. The problem is I want to use a 15x10-12" in the rear and I cant find any good DOT tires for use on a roadcourse(stiff sidewalls) all I can seem to find are drag radials. Does anyone know of any tires that will work well? Thanks

[79-TA]

It seems that they just don't make aggressive rubber for 15" wheels with a decently sized (for muscle cars) overall diameter. I searched for such a tire for quite a while and found nothing. I gave up and just got a set of 17" wheels to mount more aggressive rubber on.

BFG Radial TA's are a really nice 15" tire, but they just don't compare to the 200-300 treadwear tires for raw grip. BFG G Force sports are a little more aggressive, but aren't available in very wide sizes. There have been threads on 15" tire options. Try leaving "road race" out of your search.

You can get a set of Toyo RA1 Proxes in 225 50 15, but that gives you a small (but not tiny) overall diameter of 23.86."

[LSx_88_Ciera]

Hoosier R6 275/50/15
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif

[Cannon]

yea those A6's are way too much for the street. although I could just buy another set of wheels and mount them on for track days and get some longer lasting street tread since the wheels I'm looking at are only $80 a wheel. But I did something similar with my old camaro where I ran 315/35/17 Nitto 555r DR's in the back with a 275/45/17' 300 tread wear rating on the front and had another set of winter tires on the stock 8' rims for winter and man I got so spoiled in summer with good tread I waited too long to change the wheels back to my winter tires and got caught in a couple inches of snow at work and drove home through snow on wide drag radials lol.

I found a couple of GT40 and cobra forums complaining about the same thing, not enough tire choices for the 15" wheel market unless you only drag race.

[vintageracer]

Hoosier 225/60-15 Street TD's are the choice of a lot of Vintage racers with Mustangs, Camaro's and Corvettes. They are DOT approved BIAS ply tires. Very forgiving if you lose it at speed as they will "re-grip" unlike radial tires. Probably good for 10-20 good laps at Road Atlanta before they get greasy and go away. The Goodyear bias play road race tire last longer than the Hoosier and I like them better. The Hoosier is probably a "faster" tire until it goes away.

Remember that these observations are from road racing not autocrossing. For 15 inch tires on the cars listed above for autocross about your only choice left is the Hoosier Street TD. This tire has been around for years!!!!

[Cannon]

ok except I need something with atleast a 245 width on the front and I want something atleast a 295 in the rear.

[vintageracer]

Goodyears are probably your only choice.

Choices will be:

6.00-15
7.00-15
8.00-15

That's the way they size the old bias plys race tires. These are BIG tires. Don't let the way they are sized fool you.

Based upon your reply you will want 7.00-15's up front and 8.00-15's out back.

[Bryce]

I plan on running the Toyo R888 in a 235/50/15 size.

[Bryce]

for the back I plan on trying out a drag radial with a shorter sidewall. hoping for stability in the sidewalls.

[Cannon]

I think as long as you keep 30+lbs of air in the drag radials they should be ok. I actually ran my nitto 555r DR's in an autox with only 20psi because it was a drag/autox competition and I didnt have an air compressor and they did fine, although they had a short side wall to them - 315/35/17.

[Cannon]

Goodyears are probably your only choice.

Choices will be:

6.00-15
7.00-15
8.00-15

That's the way they size the old bias plys race tires. These are BIG tires. Don't let the way they are sized fool you.

Based upon your reply you will want 7.00-15's up front and 8.00-15's out back.

So is the first number in inches or how did they come up with those numbers?

[High Plains Mopars]

Mickey Thompson S/R tires have large sizes, come in H speed ratings, are d.o.t.approved, and are soft enough they do not rate them for mileage. A 26x10x15 is about a 255/55, 26x12x15 is about a 295/45 and their 28x12x15 would be around 295/55.

Maxxim offers H speed rated radials, 400 tread wear tires in large sizes of commonly know metric sizes that are d.o.t. approved and look similar to the old Goodyear Gatorbacks.

There is always the ol Mickey Thompson I compound tires that are 4 ply sidewalls with super sticky tread, and d.o.t. rating in bias ply construction. You'll have to dust of the alfa-numeric decoder to figure out L60 and N50.

Avon offers V and Z rated d.o.t. tires that are really thinly veiled race tires with street tread. Since they are form europe, they come in Pmetric sizes.

Goodyear has bias ply and radial tires in both racing and d.o.t.compounds in Cobra kit car sizes, i.e. large enough for a muscle car. They do use sizing similar to that outlined above.


Read through this. It is the most extensive conversation of 15" rubber I've seen on a number of sites.

https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34692

[DynoDon]

Hankook has a 295/50X15 Ventus H101. Anyone familiar with this one?

[High Plains Mopars]

If your looking for 15" race tires with d.o.t. on the side, American Racer (formerly McCreary) or Towel City might be the hot ticket.