Dan Chambers wrote:Oh yeah.
Gagen has a pretty good source for used cantilevered slicks, but are there other options? What are the thoughts out there? Non-cantilevered slicks? (I am aware that I may need to dial back the - camber on the car. What other adjustments will I need?)
This is the source for used slicks I gave Mike way back when:
John Berget Racing Tires His inventory is constantly changing, and you have to call to see if he has your sizes.
There is a guy on eBay that offers a lot of used race tires:
http://stores.ebay.com/Race-Tires-USDRRT?_rdc=1Greg Duncan in AZ sometimes has some used inventory at good prices:
http://home.comcast.net/~gduncan2/GregsUsedRaceTiresInfo.htmlWithout flares, you aren't going to be able to fit more than a 9-10" slick in the rear and an 8-9" in the front, and there will be clearance mods required (fender lips, springplate bolts, oil lines). Without some larger rims, you will be limited to the cantilever slicks that fit on 7x15" rims. I used to use the 23.0x9.0-15 G19 Goodyear Eagle on my RS clone, as Clark and Austin Smith have run lately on their black AM car, but at one time I also ran 10x16" rims in the rear with 23.5x10.5-16 non-cantilever slicks, but clearances were very tight with RS/SC/Carrera rear flares. The catalog for these GY tires is here:
http://racegoodyear.com/tires/pdf/sports_car_spec.pdf. They are bias ply and don't need a lot of camber. I used to run about -.5 to -.75 degrees with them. If you run radial slicks, you will need all the negative camber you normally want with radial DOT tires on your car.
The last thing I will tell you is that the cantilevers are a bitch to mount/dismount. The sidewalls are angled and stiff as iron pipe, so they resist the tire machine's efforts to break and set the bead. After the second set of them, Joe and Don at Import Tire told me they didn't want to see those tires again. I had to cut some off the rim to get a set off one time. I finally quit using them, even though they can be a cost-effective solution. Of course another consideration is they are not street legal and you will need to trailer the car or change tires at the track.
YMMV,
TT