Is the only purpose to keep the rim from spinning? I have never run them before but someone told me it was a safetey issue...if the tire spins on the wheel it will break the bead and the tire goes down or could rip the tube.

So I have to descide if I want to use them or not

 

Yes, it can def be a safety issue with the tube in there as it can rip out the part attached to the valve stem. I run screws on mine to keep the tire from spinning on the rim but I do not run tubes. I run 8 screws per side of each rear wheel. The only issue I ever had were that my ET streets would lose some air after a week or so.

 

I may be taking a risk, but I don't want to drill holes in my Alumi-Stars. But, I have the slick and rim marked and they haven't slipped yet with 1.48 60 ft times.

Also, most slicks without tubes will leak-down over a few days.

WD

 

I screwed mine just to be safe.I 60ft 1.48 also with 9 psi.I cant wait to get out again and try a bit more air and see what I can get

 

I used rim screws for awhile when I was running 27x11.5x15 QTP's, but since I've switched to the Hoosier 30x9 radial I don't run screws or tubes and the tire never leaks even the slightest amount of air, and I run 18psi cold on race day and have high 1.30 to low 1.40 60fts. Really though I don't how you guys get by with running such low air psi. Engineer, you are wadding your tire up badly and are of need of more air in your tire, a slight wrinkle is fine but that is excessive. If you can't hook with more air you may need to address the suspension some. Here is an example, a buddy of mine has a 99 camaro 408LS1 with 28x11.5x15 and was running 11psi in the tires and ran a 6.55 1/8 time, I told him to put 15psi in the tires and try it, he ran 6.37 and said it was alot easier to drive.

Randy

 

I was thinking the same thing........thats really bad for the sidewalls. The sidewall will be to worn to hook long before the tread wears out

 

The 30 x 9" radials sold by M/T, Hoosier, and Goodyear are Stock Eliminator tires. They are designed to run with 18 to 20 psi and are most typically run on 10" wide rims although they will work with 8" or 9" rims. Back to back, they are worth just about a tenth over a bias ply tires of the same height. They will usually respond to a shorter burnout than a bias ply tire. You will see some people over-heat them but the rule of thumb is: the hotter the track, the shorter the burnout. On a decent track, the best results usually come from getting off the throttle as soon as they make smoke. They have a relatively short track life with anything over 75 runs being above average on LT1 Stockers. I've run those tires on Stockers that were consistently in the 10.70 range and I've seen Al Corda and Ryan McClanahan run 9.90s on them. They're a great tire if you are willing to put up with the track life. Almost no one runs rim screws on those tires.

Air leakage usually occurs through the fabric of the sidewall and is especially bad on some brands of tires. There are a number of backyard fixes for this but as a rule, if you have leakers, they will always be leakers. The 14 x 32 x 15" Phoenix bias tires on my Super Stocker will go completely flat within two days sitting in the trailer. I always change them at the end of any event before the car goes back into the trailer.

c

 

I'm running 275-60x15 Hoosier drag radials on 8'' Prostars with out screws and they are not spinning on the rim with 1.455 60' being my best. I run them at 21 PSI hot and dead hook every pass.

 

I use 'em on my race car but not the Camaro. Of course, the race car is ~7psi, much less than the Camaro.

Rich

 

Rim screws always seems to be a debate-able issue when brought up, I don't think there is a situation for either case that proves the other wrong.

Tire mounting tips:

To prevent "a leaker" or at least to slow it down, you should when mounting the tires to use a very liberal amount of dish washing detergent on the bead and mounting surface on the rim. Make sure the rim is ultra clean at the bead as well.

Air up your tires before you put it on the trailer, that will help the tire hold the rim better and hopefully it will prevent the tire from going down after the car is tied down and possible car damage from having a loose car in the trailer (personal experience not much fun opening the trailer door and seeing the car against the side of the trailer)

The little pink dot is the balance dot, line it up with your valve stem and in most cases you'll use less balancing material.

Never use the balancing weight that are affixed to the outer edge of the rim for safety reasons. I witnessed a car in the burnout box doing its high gear burnout and a weight flew off the car bouncing off the wall behind it and hitting a cam-corder in a ladies hand. It smashed the camera to shreads and cut the ladies has severly. Use the adhesive type but used a bead of silicon to attach them in lieu of the adhesive backing, the adhesive backing isn't always quality adhesive and they are prone to come of the rim.

hope this helps

 

This will probably surprise you, but I always run 13.5 pounds in my Goodyear slicks (28” x 10.5).

I was also surprised when my friend took that photo above and I saw how much sidewalls wrinkle on the launch. The 60 fts are 1.48 to 1.50, so they are hooking great.

WD

Another launch photo.

 

Half a bottle in each tire.

There is no rule saying you can't use outer edge weights and I know of a couple of 11 second cars that use them with no problems. If you lose a weight, it probably wasn't installed properly. They do look ugly on nice aluminum rims though. I use stick on weights on the inside of my rims with duct tape over them.

Hoosiers are probably the best for retaining air. My MT still leak down even after soaping the insides.

If you run tubes, you should be using rim screws. As mentioned above, if the tire slips on the rim, it will rip the valve stem off the tube. I don't run tubes because I use a stiff sidewall tire and don't need the extra support or weight from tubes. I do run 16 rims screws on each side of the rim though. The chances of losing the bead even with low pressure tires is low. I screw the tire to the rim for 2 reasons. If it spins, the balance will change and the amount of rim screws will affect how much wrinkle the sidewall gets. I've experimented from 8 to 15 psi and find 10 works pretty good. That's also with a 32 x 14 tire on a 15 x 15 rim.

Rule of thumb for tire pressure. Run as much as possible until 60' times start to slow down.

 

In the past, used to just have the tire shop put some bead snot/glue around the bead before inflating and popping it upto the rim, never had a rim rotation issue

Once i started going a little faster and tired of scraping the rims since i change slicks every month i went to screws, no tubes. I tried tubes once and the added weight and difficulty balancing made me throw them out at the end of the month...only nice thing was during the hot summer months with sun blazing down, with the tubes they were much less prone to gaining air pressure than non tubed slicks...which was nice when you are in that weird spot of cars getting pulled out, then a 5-10 minute downtime and then they start pulling again...it's nothing to see a 1-2psi increase on the sunny side of the car after 10-15minutes of sitting idle in the sun in the staging lanes...

Also, bias ply's like to be shocked/hit hard to work, that's the design. I run mine at 10psi for two reason...one it hooks at that psi, but most importantly and the one some guys dont think about...it keeps me GREEN. Any more psi and i redlight by just enough to make you throw stuff/cuss. Same with front tires, if your having issues and your not pulling the tires out of the beam on the hit...start paying attention and checking front tire psi before each run along with your rear tires...very easy to manipulate R/T's with front tires too.

 

Like I said I cant wait to get back and try more air.
I only have 12 passes on my car since I just finished it in september and only got the car out really the 1 time.Mine are just the little baby 26 inch tires but from what paople tell me I should use 16 as a starting point.right now it dead hooks and lifts the fronts fairly good of the t-brake

 

Most of the NHRA Stock Eliminator and Super-Stock 4th Gen F-Bodys like ours are running 29" or 30" slicks with gears in the 4.30 to 4.56 range. I keep checking-out those cars at the major events.

I'm currently running 28" with 4.30s, however, my next set of slicks will be 29" or possibly 29.5". Also, I'm wondering how much I will be able to improve (if any) over my current 1.48 60fts with the slightly larger diameter slicks?

WD