Ok...enough stupidity. You guys are really gonna defend something so flagrantly dangerous to the other people on the road (you know, the ones you guys forgot about), by saying 80 years ago they didnt have good safety equipment, or that40 years ago you ran slicks ont the streets (yeah, I did it 20 years ago. was stupid. no excuse), and others are trying to compare tires with patterns cut into them to slicks (once theres a tread pattern cut in, we're not really having the same conversation now, are we?).Bottom line is, its dumb and theres no excuse, unless youre rocking a trailer queen. Your mother shares the road with *****s. Dont be another one.
Many moons ago most of us bolted the slicks on for Friday and Saturday night street racing. But even an early morning dew will screw things up fast! I ran M&H slicks (not cheaters) on a couple of my cars.
I was the slick tester for radir. To make them work do not use inner tubes. Tubes make the side walls too stiff. Without tubes the tires are allowed to wrinkle. The tires must be flat. Do burnouts until the two grooves are gone. I have used a tow strap around the rear end and a light pole to get the job done. A big Burn out is a must at the track. Tire softeners work great.
Good post Rockn. Yes you may get away with it for your whole life but that is simply blind luck. Odds are however that sooner or later simple physics will catch up with you and put you and other people in danger. Your hot rod has very low Normal Force (weight) because you went to great lengths to make it so. Then the Coefficient of Friction for slicks is extremely low, even on dry pavement, so the Force of Friction (traction) is severely compromised (less than half that of a DOT tire). That's why in the early days of drag racing guys filled their 4" pipe bumper with lead or stuffed the trunk with bunches of huge lead/acid batteries and jacked the nose of the car into the stratosphere to stack weight on the rear tires, trying to make up for the lack of vehicle weight and the REALLY ****py coefficient of friction of early recapped slicks. Race cars make up for that by running flat tires with huge footprints on very clean tracks with stickum all over everything. This is what it is like. https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...=eee62e05eb517f23858190f6c7f7f8f0&action=view https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...iew&id=8&vid=2d092ce03d62bb1d17d8eecee576eeee
A guy gave me a pair of recap slicks in 1967. BOY, was I a stud! On the Friday night drive in cruise, everyone could see my slicks and knew I meant business! Or maybe it was too dark to see them. Darned things were 3" taller than my street tires and hard as a rock. I could spin them till the cows came home; the sidewalls were stiffer than a two-petered billygoat. Then, I learned about rain....er, damp streets. At a stop light, the light turned green and I eased the clutch out.....just spin. Several cars behind me honked but I was stuck. I sat thru maybe 3 light sequences before I got it rolling in 4th gear. On the way home, my tail lights p***ed me but I somehow stayed out of the ditch. Never again.....besides the car ran a better E.T. on street tires aired down than it did on recap slicks.
I've run slicks on the street for decades. I have had the 10" Hurst recaps on the back of my Falcon g***er for I think about 6 years now. It has working wipers and even with a BBC it doesn't give me issues getting traction in the rain. Certainly not like dry pavement, but not like some have described. I was running M&H drag radials on my Austin g***er, but they weren't the look I wanted. So I recently had Towel City make me up a pair of their 9" slicks with 2 grooves and installed them on my Austin. Shortly after I got caught in a thunderstorm on the way home, so got to test them in the rain. They hooked up pretty good, and very similar to how the Hurst slicks hook in the wet.
In a hot rod, slicks or not, you need to use caution on a wet or damp road. I've had street tires with tons of tread that didn't work worth a **** in the rain.
Once I borrowed my uncle's 64 Ford running slicks. I had to panic stop at a 4 way intersection because the car in front of me didn't run the yellow like I planned to do. The rear tires locked and squealled for so long the people from the stores came out to see the accident. I took the left turn lane to miss the car but knew I would blow thru the light. When I was able I turned right to spin the car out. Came to a stop inches from the other car. Never, ever again!
Holy ****..back in high school I re did my 80 Capri and I was given some take off gator backs and turbine wheels of a new 5.0...man those things ****ed in the rain..down right scary..
Sweet ride! What size wheels are you running? That’s the look I want to go with on my ‘30 Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Lost of good advice both ways here (which you can only expect from the HAMB). I will not advise one way or the other as it is really your choice but I can report on the tires in question. I ran the "stones" as some folks call them on my Model "A" and put tons of miles on it and a few trips down the strip as well. I never had an issue and I got caught in a few torrents as well. Maybe I just didn't notice them slipping as I much more concerned trying to hold back the tide rolling in under the windshield etc. LOL! If you are trying to get technical in this answer I think there is some science out there for you. I was only running a 3.50 gear and the car only weighed 2300 pounds. I think the taller the gear the less chance of being slippery when wet. A lighter car is not going to hurt either. But as @racer-x said, we are already driving what would be considered the most unsafe cars on the road today and we do it because we love it!
LOVE your car! As you have observed, you can get away a whole lifetime running slicks on the street and never have a problem. However, the physics don't lie; cars running them give back huge amount of traction which is dangerous. It is the siren's song, a false sense of security. We are not talking about a car getting a little squirrely. Rather when it happens, your car instantly goes endo, rear flips around in front and you have NO control on what is happening. Hard to explain until you experience it.
I wasn't going to get into this but what the hell. Discussion is great and everyone is en***led to their point of view. It's when you start calling people *****s and stupid because they don't follow your holier than thou morality that bugged me. Name me a damn case where a hot rodder's "car" caused another drivers death or injury. I'm not talking about racing on the street, showing off or the involvement of drugs/alcohol. If anything we are more in tune with how our cars function and what it's limits are than 99% of the drivers out there. For every BS story you come up with I'll bring up a few thousand caused by distracted drivers, cell phones and by people that just plain don't give a f... If it's calling for rain I take my other car, if I get caught in an unexpected shower I sit it out. Besides, your not allowed to call anyone a ***** until you've been here for at least 5 years. It's in the rules.....look it up.
Thank you. I was looking to catch a 1960's vibe, because this car did a lot of drag racing back in those days. The rears are Firestone 820 - 15, with American Torq Thrusts with flat aluminum cover for the center. These are painted a darker gray than stock. Fronts are Firestone 560-15, on Rocket "Launcher" wheels, with the "as cast" finish, but painted the same dark gray.
Ok, Wraymen, simmer down. Was anyone specifically called a *****? NO. Do you give everyone guff who swears, etc? See plenty of vulgar language and risque speak on here. I dont need to load news clippings of accidents for people to know the idea is dangerous, and I wouldnt waste my time to do so. I dont know anyone thats drank bleach, but im not gonna, cause its a bad idea. *****ic even.
Furthermore, I dont know when I bothered to register, but ive been lurking around here for a good decade. Didnt know I had to be at the founders first meeting to have an opinion.
NO rocknwrench you are the one that needs to simmer down. Your comment was uncalled for and out of line. We all have a different opinion of just about everything, that's cool but when you start telling folks there opinion is stupid and *****ic then its you with the problem and I don't care what tires you are running, as long as you don't run your mouth.
I hate to break up a family argument but... I was driving back from the tune up shop an hour ago and a gent rolled up along side to tell me my right rear wheel was wobbling quite a bit. Fearing a "flyin brian" moment (sorry Brian) I pulled off to check my knock offs. Speed wire secured I continued on my way. Seems one of my towel city slicks ain't as round or square as I was lead to believe. Running slicks on the street... Make sure they are round. Ok, back to the good stuff.
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