I currently have 275/40/17 BFG KDW on 17" SS wheels on the back of my Z28, and they're past the wear bars, but not yet fully bald. I was running 32psi in them for a while, but noticed they were wearing in the center faster, so I dropped to 28psi. They hook a little better, but 1st gear is still pretty much unusable in the car. If I mat it from a slow roll in 1st, the tires just spin all the way to redline, and most of the way through second.

I'm not trying to say that BFG is crap, KDW is crap, or anything of the sort. I'm just wondering if this is normal for these tires when they get this worn, or if it's time for me to step up to stickier tire or even a DR?

 

the reason you have no traction is because your tires are bald

 

bald tires are not the equivalent to slicks, contrary to ricer belief.

 

wow...I was totally unaware that a tire that has tread on it still was equivalent to a bald tire, and apparently asking a tire about traction meant that I had the same thoughts as ricers. I'll have to keep that in mind for the future.

 

Nobody was saying that you had a ricer mentality. It's not like you purposely burned yours down to no tread to make yourself a sweet set of slicks. At least that's not how I read it. Lighten up man.

 

you said yourself they are past the wearbars...THAT= bald tire

 

They way you stated it seemed to me like you we're expecting to get 'Great' Traction from Bald Tires

Now if you feel like you had poor traction from the tires all along then yes maybe a switch to different tires is in order, but asking about the traction they provide when Bald is not really going to get you any worth while responses

PS if you don't mind moving up to an 18" Rim and like the KDW Series I highly recommend the KDW2s

 

No, I wasn't expecting great traction at all, but then I also wasn't expecting them to be near useless either. I've done a lot of work to the car since I first put them on, and I'd estimate I'm putting at least another 50HP to the ground (no, this isn't a I put this part on that the ad said 20HP for, and another one for 10....and added 'em all up..I'm basing this solely on how it feel to the butt dyno...regardless, it's a LOT stronger on the freeway than it used to be).

So really I'm more curious if it's because of what I did to the car, or if the tires really do drop off significantly.

 

do a search for tires, there is a good selection of 275/40/17 tires out there, and you will get A LOT of different opinions. some people say tire A is better, some say tire B is better.... but 99% of the time people who say tire A is better, have not ever tried tire B, and vice versa.

If traction is you main priority, don't go to an 18's rim. if anything go smaller. 17" seems the be the most common median in the f-body community.

my personal choice are firehawk wideovals.... they don't hurt your wallet that bad and offer great dry/wet traction. and they smokey really well for a burn out/fish tails. I have had the following tires on my car: goodyear eagles, goodyear gt-hr's, sumito htr or whatever they are called... both the I and the II, vredstien or some weird european brand, nitto drag radials, and on my draglites i've had m/t drag radials and et drags. I think i may be set on the wideovals from here on out.... the only thing else i would want to try are the gsd3, but they cost a pretty penny.

 

So true.

You should be more specific about Goodyear Eagles. That's a series, not a tire.

I have GS-D3's. Really happy with them on the street and at the autocross, but crappy at the drag strip.