rcl4668
Enthusiast
Sorry for the recent barrage of newbie questions. I find myself getting up late at night to go out to the garage and just stare at the damn thing. Next thing you know I will start sleeping in the car and calling it (her?) Christine.
At any rate, if I can't drive the car (it's raining pretty heavily here in the Northwest) I can at least plan my next improvement to the car. Which brings me to the question of getting a set or rims and tires for use at the track:
(1) I would like to get a set of rims that present a significant reduction in weight over the stock rims that came with my car, the standard 10-spokers; if possible, I would like to stick with the staggered 19-rear and 18-front wheel sizes so one good option would seem to be the "sidewinder" wheel that was offered on the Copperhead. I seem to recall someone posting that these wheels were almost 10 lbs lighter per wheel than the 10-spokes. Does anyone have any other suggestions for ultra light yest sturdy rims in these sizes for track use?
(2) Whichever rim I go with, I would like to retain the tire pressure monitoring system ("TPMS") functionality. I searched and found a post by member Kai who went through this process of having one set of street and one set of track rims and tires. In essence, it seems like you just need to pay for an extra set of four tire pressure monitoring valve stems and have them installed on the rim/tire assembly. The Viper's pressure monitoring module can evidently handle signals for 8 tire pressure sensors, so one set of four sensors for the track wheels and one set for the street wheels. How much are these sensors? I assume it is not a problem to mount them on an OEM wheel like the sidewinder but has anyone had problems with them on a non-OEM, aftermarkey wheel? Once on, my understanding is that you just need to go to your local Dodge delaer to have them calibrate the new tire/rim/TPMS sensor assembly; and finally
(3) Tires: I would like a tire that I can use for the track but also use on the street in a pinch. I contacted Luke, the high-performance guru at TireRack who quite honestly said that given the need to drive on the street, an R-compound tire like a Hoosier would not be a good choice given that it is essentially a slick and would not perform well in any kind of precipatation. He also said the tire would pick up any debris and sandblast the car. Luke's thought was that there were not a lot of options out there now for good track/street tires but to wait till Spring because there was a chance that the tire manufacturers would be coming out with new 19'' sizes because of the Viper, recent Z06 BMW and Porsche OEM rim sizes. Aside from taking Luke's advice and waiting, does anyone have any ideas for tires? Has anyone used the 19'' 355 width Pirelli PZero Rossos on the track?
Thanks!
/Rich
At any rate, if I can't drive the car (it's raining pretty heavily here in the Northwest) I can at least plan my next improvement to the car. Which brings me to the question of getting a set or rims and tires for use at the track:
(1) I would like to get a set of rims that present a significant reduction in weight over the stock rims that came with my car, the standard 10-spokers; if possible, I would like to stick with the staggered 19-rear and 18-front wheel sizes so one good option would seem to be the "sidewinder" wheel that was offered on the Copperhead. I seem to recall someone posting that these wheels were almost 10 lbs lighter per wheel than the 10-spokes. Does anyone have any other suggestions for ultra light yest sturdy rims in these sizes for track use?
(2) Whichever rim I go with, I would like to retain the tire pressure monitoring system ("TPMS") functionality. I searched and found a post by member Kai who went through this process of having one set of street and one set of track rims and tires. In essence, it seems like you just need to pay for an extra set of four tire pressure monitoring valve stems and have them installed on the rim/tire assembly. The Viper's pressure monitoring module can evidently handle signals for 8 tire pressure sensors, so one set of four sensors for the track wheels and one set for the street wheels. How much are these sensors? I assume it is not a problem to mount them on an OEM wheel like the sidewinder but has anyone had problems with them on a non-OEM, aftermarkey wheel? Once on, my understanding is that you just need to go to your local Dodge delaer to have them calibrate the new tire/rim/TPMS sensor assembly; and finally
(3) Tires: I would like a tire that I can use for the track but also use on the street in a pinch. I contacted Luke, the high-performance guru at TireRack who quite honestly said that given the need to drive on the street, an R-compound tire like a Hoosier would not be a good choice given that it is essentially a slick and would not perform well in any kind of precipatation. He also said the tire would pick up any debris and sandblast the car. Luke's thought was that there were not a lot of options out there now for good track/street tires but to wait till Spring because there was a chance that the tire manufacturers would be coming out with new 19'' sizes because of the Viper, recent Z06 BMW and Porsche OEM rim sizes. Aside from taking Luke's advice and waiting, does anyone have any ideas for tires? Has anyone used the 19'' 355 width Pirelli PZero Rossos on the track?
Thanks!
/Rich
