red line tires

[john heffner]

can anyone tell me where i can get 15 inch red line tires for a 68 camaro?
thanks,

[68z302]

I think Coker Tire would have something.
www.coker.com
I'm sure others will chime in with other brands.

[LVCamaro]

Have you tried www.kelseytire.com ?

SS

[csx289]

I use both Coker and Kelsey. Both are excellent, although pricey for such awful driving tires!

Coker does not sell Goodyear tires, just the Firestone Super Sports and Wide Ovals. In my experience (and I have mounted 100's of repo tires) the Goodyears seem to be of higher quality. We use a Hunter 9700 Road Force balancer, wich measures such things as tire run-out and runs a drum against the tire to simulate actual loaded use. Then it gives a road force measurment, i.e., the actual amount of force placed on the road by the tire. The lower the better, as lower force means the tire is more round and simply doing its job. GM will throw out any tire on a new car that has a vibration complaint under warranty if the road force exceeds 15lbs.

Typically, on G70-14 Wide Ovals (Judge tires!), we have been getting 60-80 lbs of road force. This is TERRIBLE! You will feel 25 lbs. pretty easily. With indexing and sometimes much trial and error, we can usually get them into the 20-30 lb range. Usually!

I just put a set of Goodyear Speedway 350 repo Shelby tires on my GT500. The road force was 12 - 28 lbs before indexing for a set of 4. After indexing, I was able to get them all to 7-12 lbs. In other words, acceptable for a modern tire.

Just my experience. As a general rule, I just buy the tire that is correct for the car and make the best of it. I recommend finding a good tire guy with a Hunter 9700 and spending the extra money to have them road force balanced.

Once again, my $.02 . Street value $.01. Use it as you wish!

Colin

[Chevy454]

That's interesting to hear, Colin. Us Pure Stock guys have been talking for a while now about the differences betweeen the Firestones & Goodyears...while we are mostly concerned with traction differences, no one can say for sure which tire is better (yet).

BUT, a couple of racers have noticed that some of the repro tires take a LOT of weight, which concerns them, especially with some of the speeds the Pure Stock and Stock Appearing cars are hitting (PS cars are in the low 120s, but the SA cars are nearing 130mph!). If we buy a set of 4, normally 1 or 2 will need 3 or so ounces to balance, even after moving the tire around on the wheel. Does this sound typical of what you've found? Any advice on what to look for, or remedy this?

[csx289]

Hi Rob,
One of the benifits of getting a good road force balance is indexing the wheel and tire assembly. For instance, you measure the runout and imbalance of both, and then index the high or heavy spot of the tire with the low or light spot on the rim. It is a tedious process, but once done to perfection , you can minimize run-out, imbalance, road force variation, and consequently, use less lead !

No, I am in no way affiliated with the people who sell road force equipment! I actually came across it after trying EVERYTHING to get a high speed shimmy/vibration out of my Cobra. New wheels, tires, etc. - nothing could cure the slight "jack hammering" of the steering wheel. And I am running vintage Michelin XWX tires, a supposedly high quality tire. I found a guy who swore he could fix it. I brought him my two front tires, and we found 1 at 75lbs of force, and one at 40. He indexed them and got them down to 15 and 19 lbs , mind you these are wire wheels and vintage 78 series tires! The difference was unbelievable, it transformed the car. The downside was that he charged $200 to balance two tires! So, I bought the equipment for my shop. I now road force EVERY tire on every car I have here, and have done it for a lot of friends that were having repo tire problems.

We also do the American LeMans series Viper Team tires , as well as a bunch of road race guys tires. The Viper team is sponsored by Michelin and BBS, they require road force balancing . What does that tell you?

I highly recommed this for any car. For your daily driver you will notice a difference in smoothness and tire wear will be much better.

I can't help but think that a tire with less weight on it , and one that is more round and has much less rolling resistance would make a car a few clicks faster in the 1/4. I know it makes road race cars faster!

Give it a shot and let me know how it works. I am curious to see what happens, and what you think!

Colin

[Nova Research Project]

csx289;

Just my tenth of a cent....

In the late 60’s and early 70’s the wheels and tires were indexed at the factory. I am not researching other time frame, so for all I know this is the way it is today too.

Wheels had an identifiable mark on them. Usually a small raised spot near the edge of the rim on the outward side. I think many people with aluminum rims thought these were flaws.

The tires were balanced and also marked on the stripe or outward side. Usually there was a mark on the tire that may have paint or wax marked over it.

I am not sure if the mark of the wheel was the light or heavy side. The tire was marked the opposite.

During assembly the wheel and tire were indexed to each other by aligning these marks. After assembly the tires were balanced and another wax mark was used to indicate where to put the weight. It also probably indicated what weight to use.

Does anyone have original spares? Can you take pictures of the whole tire from each side and close ups of the marks and email the pictures to me?

Thanks,
Greg Roberts

[Chevy454]

I'd forgotten about that, Greg! The "bb" on the wheel, and the "dab" on the tire...I think we've got a couple of original spares, maybe even one for a Nova.

[Zedder]

I thought that the "BB" was used on the spare wheel only? I'm going from memory, but I thought that was the rule of thumb when I was judjing with the NCRS? I just bought a set of DF rally wheels and one has the "BB".

[Salvatore]

Better talk to GTO DON he knows tires!