Best tires/wheel setup for Forced Induction

[allenquanobi]

You haven't really articulated what you want out of a set tires. Are you planning to drag race, road course track, autocross, commute, road trip....how do you plan to use the extra power and why did you want it?

For most purposes, more power demands a wider, sticky compound tire. There is no getting around that wider and sticky will also wear faster and tend to wander on the highway.

Mostly spirited driving, highway pulls for fun every now and then; maybe roll racing. It’s a daily driver, so I don’t see the need for drag radials as most of my driving is near a city and on weekends I can have fun driving on canyon roads and such and on highways

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[Skye]

The car is to be a FI DD. What weather and road conditions are expected throughout the year? Lowest temps to be seen? How often are rain, dense moisture like fog and other damp conditions expected?

 

[roadpilot]

Mostly spirited driving, highway pulls for fun every now and then; maybe roll racing. It’s a daily driver, so I don’t see the need for drag radials as most of my driving is near a city and on weekends I can have fun driving on canyon roads and such and on highways

With all due respect, if you "don't see the need" to move away from narrow factory all-season tires after strapping a SC that pushes a GT to over 810+ HP and 640+ lb ft of torque, you're going to end up destroying your car. All I ask is that you post pics of the aftermath.

If your primary intentions are daily driving and spirited canyon driving, I would argue that you don't need FI.

 

[RLE55]

I raced (road racing) a SC 4.6L Roush for 12 years, 7 of them running 315/30-18 Hoosier R7's and then A7's. They'd break traction quite easily till warmed up and even then I had to be careful, the TQ a SC provides is impressive, especially with a race tune. Best advice, know what you have and it's limits or it'll get away from you in a sec.

 

[HWill]

Drop a Whipple on a S650 and leave the factory tires on there, and you'll be the next guy who gets a video made about him by someone @ Cars & Coffee ...

Forced induction and tires that "last long" don't often collide in the same sentence.

While I kinda agree.

You can run stock tires on a Whipple vehicle! You do not need to get drag tires but I would recommend good tires when you can get them to take advantage of the power the Whipple will make,.

Only being stupid and not knowing how to drive would put you in the category of drivers "roadpilot" is describing. And even then, there are some that can't handle a stock GT.

But as some have said you need to decide what you want to do with the car and that will help you with what tires you want to run.

Sticky tires don't last long.

 

[roadpilot]

810 hp and 640 lb ft torque does not get along with all season tires. You need traction. If you aren't putting the power to the ground, all you will accomplish with a SC is breaking traction and spinning out. It's physics, and I never disagree with physics.

 

[HWill]

810 hp and 640 lb ft torque does not get along with all season tires. You need traction. If you aren't putting the power to the ground, all you will accomplish with a SC is breaking traction and spinning out. It's physics, and I never disagree with physics.

If the throttle was an on/off switch you would be correct, but it is not.
You can drive a Whipple vehicle without losing traction even with traction control turned off on stock all seasons.

If you think you can't drive a SC without breaking traction all the time then you never had one or don't know how to drive.

BTW with Whipple tunes the traction control is still ON. The only way you are going to get out of control is if you do something stupid on purpose.

Now yes you are not going to use the Whipple to the full effect but it will be drivable and safe with stock tires.

 

[Q6543]

Even drag radials are gonna spin like a
Bitch, you need to really make some compromises.

a bias ply would be your best friend, like a Hoosier QTP, or Et street R bias.

they’ll offer recovery from spinning, while a radial will just continue to spin once traction breaks.

 

[MCS]

Ok, learn from my experience on this; please. Before you kill yourself or someone else.

My current Mustang is SC (750 hp). I upgraded my rims and added a set of 4 Nitto 555 G2 cause everyone said they were grippy as hell. I don't know what they were talking about but they weren't; maybe for a stock Mustang but not FI. So I kept them on the front but upgraded the rears to Nitto 555 RII becuase they were street legal drag radials and supposidly they were best for FI. They aren't; not for a daily driver in the city. Unless you wanna do a burn out at each stoplight to keep the heat in them.

Before anyone says "Oh, I just wont use that kinda power on the streets". You don't get a choice. Trying to behave with one of these vehicles is like playing "Just the tip". You know it ain't gonna be something you can control.

Also; think long and hard about SC a daily driver unless you live in an area that never seens cold weather and very little rain.

Here in Ontario?

Driving in rain? Forget it; the drag radials don't like it
Driving cold weather? Forget it; can't keep heat in the drag radials
Driving on stock rims and tires? I would have stacked the car easily post SC install

Not to say it can't be done. I saw a great guy on M6G who did a couple thousand mile road trip with a SC Mustang however he had his family with him so the FAAFO threshold was probably closely monitored. Were that me? I probably wouldn't have made it home.

 

[JAL]

If you're looking for grip and putting the power down with maximum efficiency, without the car being a dedicated racer, I see 2 paths (for rear wheels):

Easy to implement: 19x11 ET 52 with 315 section tires with 200 TW max. Suboptimal but a real world solution.

Harder to implement but still very doable: 19x11.5 or 19x12 (you need to figure out offset but it's been done and it's easy to find) with 325 section tires In 200 TW max. Look in the Vorshlag blog for detailed explanations on how to do this.

I'm on 19x11 with 305 section Michelin Pilot Sport 4S and I think this is the sweet spot for maximizing stock power on 300+ TW tires in launching with minimal wheelspin.

I have no doubt others with more skill/experience can do better. But one thing is for sure:

There is no way I could come near optimizing forced induction Coyote power on 305 section tires in above 200 TW compound. So going wider and stickier is necessary. Otherwise you're not using the power you paid dearly for. Or if you are, I will see you on YouTube in a cars and coffee video. With that much power, you do FI because you want to and it's cool and no need to justify. But I'm confident you need wide and sticky (and the right alignment) to use all of the power with efficiency otherwise it's just inertia wheelspin and you're not launching hard.

 

[Neggytive]

the problem is you can find tires that will hook up rather than slip, but then that force is then transferred to the differential and axles, and they will fail if you hit it hard enough

If you are going to get additional grip out of the tires, look at other upgrades (axles!) before you do it

 

[mks]

Insightful and enlightening comments all around. If yet another user experience matters to you, I ran AS on my Super Snake and Winters for my commutes (25 miles one way to the Air Force Academy, where I taught English many years ago). My house was at about 7,500, so very often I was ascending and descending roughly 800 ft in typical Colorado snow. I'm from the Northeast, so very used to driving in all weather cond. The Super Snake handled all seasons like a champ. And, my tire life was "ok" --swapped tires for three seasons before replacing them. That said, I also didn't drive boosted 24/7. No racing, donuts, hole shots, drag, etc. Spirited, yes. Extra power on the highway during long trips, certainly. Clapton wrote, "It's in the way that you use it." The rest of the lyrics also seem (mostly) apposite.

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