Front radial suggestions to go with rear MT

I'm running a 195/70R-14 tire on the front with a 24 3/4" diameter for a short roll out to get a good reaction time. I have M/T ET Street drag radials in the back. 235/60R 15s - 26" diameter and it handles nice. I used to run Hoosier bias ply in the rear but it didn't want to go in a straight line on the top end. Shorter diameter is shorter rollout and quicker reaction. It depends a lot on how quick the car leaves.

blaine H.

I run a 26" tall rear MT 275/50-15 drag radial in my Spirit on 15x 10 wheelswith 4.5 BS and they fit perfect inside the flares. A 28 tall tire out back is going to be tight and a 28" tall tire in front most likely will rub the fenders when turning depending on BS and wheel width. I measured my Spirit wells at 29" across at the bottom of the front fenders. Gremlins should be pretty close to the same

Thanks Blaine H. 

Okay, here's the thing. You're starting with a great body. A great set of wheels and tires. Even have backspacing figured out but the fact is no amount of your suspension will be able to compensate for outrageous tire sizes.

My Eagle wagon uses 27.1" tires on 15" rims and I intend to keep it that way until I can get rid of the 2.72 gears in some cheap manner. Can I go bigger? Yes. But it requires a lift kit and a bunch of other engineering that I'm not willing to commit to before getting it running for the first time in 3 years.

My Javelin came with all kinds of weird mixed sizes of wheels and tires. The wheels were 14" and 15" while I had compact spares that locked the front brakes and a 225/70R15 that was WAY too big for the front but could sit well enough on the rear axle. Here's what I did:

Figured out the measurement size on the STOCK wheel and tire size, then increased the wheel size and matched a tire to stay as close to the factory size as possible. I currently have a 225/40R18 tires up front on 8" wide US Mags. I'm probably going to go with 9" wide Mags for the rear and possibly put in a 275/35R18 package. If I were to put such an outrageous wheel and tire package up front, I would get more fender rubbing like I did with an oversized tire.



The way the front wheel and tire package is at the moment, allows for 1cm of room on either side of the fender and 5mm space between whatever else when fully turned in a bumpstop. Do your own dimensioning work and you'll catch these problems before you have to physically deal with them.

I'm shortening the rear end to accommodate the 15.5 inches of space after the tub removes the 3/4 inches of inner tub against the frame rail and the 3/4 inch wheel well lip is gone. The section width of the tire I'm going with is 13.5 inches. My calculations are I will have 2 inches of space, basically 1 inch each side of the tire after all said and done. The tub will have to be lengthened further to the back of the car and made taller as well.