Firestone wide oval tires
modnrod:
Thanks for bringing back this thread, I had a good giggle! :D
It's not technology, or computer controls, or being smarter that makes cars and bikes so much faster now than in the past...........it's the tyres. ;)
I remember being on a wet highway in a 1963 having a road train go past. The little Beetle still had the stock 5.60-15s on it, and it promptly started to pendulum around while I was doing about 100kph. :o
Of course the bloody wipers didn't work either, so I had no way of knowing which way was up. ;D
Rocket-Racing:
With a little tweaking of the suspension you can use these tires and still have a car that goes straight on the highway.
Bias tires, and specially these "square" late 60's-early 70's tires, are less forgiving than radials and you need to have both the front and rear suspension adjusted correctly.
The first time I had my oval out on the highway with a set of F70-15 Mickey Thompson Indy Profiles I almost needed to change my pants. It was ALL over the place and suddenly decided to change lanes by itself. So I had to find out what to do.
First of all, you need to have a little toe-in on the rear. On the early cars this can't be adjusted so you have to either use later spring plates or file the holes in the original ones to get the adjustment needed. All the way forward works fine and gives a lot more straight line stability. This was the major improvement.
Second you also need to have the front suspension in good shape and with the correct toe-in.
There is a rule saying that you should never mix radials and bias tires on the same car, and it has something to it.. I usually run bias 5.60-15's on the front on my oval but on other cars (like the green '66 in the pics) I use radials up front without any problems as long as the suspension is right.
After having the adjustments set up I really have no handling problems. And I don't mean getting to and from meetings without ending in the ditch, I usually drive about 12-13.000kms each summer on all kinds of roads without ever thinking about the tires being an issue.
As for handling. these tires (Goodyear Polyglas, Firestone Wide Ovals etc) were the state of the art tires in 1970. Tire technology has come a long way since then, but they were original equipment on 400+ horsepower musclecars that were not "lethal" to drive. The grip in the wet is not the best but the sidewalls are pretty stiff and they handle ok in turns. After having tried a lot of setups, widths and so on I would try to avoid using tubes in them. They are not supposed to have them and in my experience become more unpredictable. Square tires don't like round tubes.. They are also wider than they are high, the tubes are not.
Widths are also discussed earlier in the thread. In Theory the F designates the width, but that really isn't the case. A F-70 tire is about the same as a 215/70. I now use F60's and they equal a 245/60 radial tire.
There was also someone asking if a F-60 can be used. Yes it can but you need the offset on your wheels to be 100% correct. I use them on wheels that I have widened and tweaked a bit. They are now 6.4" wide and the tires are almost touching the rear body mount and spring plates. That combined with the fact that I can see the white letters in the rear view mirror means you can't get much wider tires under an original fender ;D
Rocket-Racing:
A couple more. The green one is currently my daily driver and sees a lot of highway use. Straight as an arrow (the handling that is, not the car ;D ).
I would also challenge every kind of stock bug to outperform it on a twisty road. Are they dangerous? ;)
Lee.C:
This is my new favourite picture of your car dude ;D
I think I am going to go the "Radial" route on the 65..... Pirelli Cinturato's 155's & 185's :)
Rocket-Racing:
Quote from: monkiboy on July 20, 2013, 16:02:06 pm
I think I am going to go the "Radial" route on the 65..... Pirelli Cinturato's 155's & 185's :)
Nothing wrong with going the radial route. But... Your combo would be great on an "ordinary" looker, afraid it will be a bit skinny for a pre-cal car..
In the pic you commented (thanks ;) ) the oval has its stock height front beam with 5.5" Mangels and 165R15's. You can't see it in that pic but it worked like magic to give it that beefy "musclecar-look".
Edit: Found a couple of (very poor) in motion pics from a cruising. Gives kind of an idea of what I mean (car #2). Riding high with the front wheels moved outwards by the offset of the 5.5's it got "that" look 8)
Wheels are everything. An otherwise very cool car can be totally ruined by the wrong wheels and tires and how they sit. On the other hand, a pretty much boring car can be cooler than those eskimo balls by having the right combination of stance, wheels and tires..
To qoute mr Baboon: "Get a cool set of wheels and find a car that fits them" ;D
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