255 55 17 Federal Tire Picture

Wanted to show a picture of my wagon with 255 55 17 tires since the question of tire size comes up here once in a while.

Anyway, my daily driver is a tiny bit lower than stock height. Moog 5030 front springs cut one coil in front, Moog CC505 springs in the back. I'd say the front is maybe 3/4 inch lower than stock, and the back is about the same. Because of that, I spent a bunch of time trying to find a slightly taller tire than the standard 255 50 17 Impala SS tire. I ended up with the 255 55 17 tires because they are the same height as 235 70 15 tires, and that always worked well for my car. Both are 28" tall, as opposed to 27" for the 255 50 17.

Anyway, I'm not sure it was completely worth the trouble. The bottom line is that the wider tires fill up the wheel wells more visually than the thinner 235 tires, so I don't think it is totally necessary to go with the taller tire. The good news is the Federals are only about $105 per corner, so they aren't very expensive. So far they are a smooth, quiet ride with great dry traction and decent wet traction.

And now... how do they look?

I think they look great. Federal "whats"? Where did you get them from?

Hey Kevin how about some ground shots from the front and back to give us a idea of how
wide these tires are,Look real good from the side.All my research says they are pretty good
tires even though Federal caters to the drifting crowds.Did the tires balance out good or did they take a lot of lead to balance each tire?
Thanks Again
Jim Gordon

Jim, they balanced out just fine. I used clip-on weights on the inside and stick-ons on the outside. Nothing major, in fact one didn't call for any stick-ons. I'll snap some more pics if it ever stops raining out.

These are the SS-595 tires, I got them from Tires Easy. They've already gone up $10 each since I got them:

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?details=Ordern&cart_id=1005866.135.11535&typ=R-133898&ranzahl=4&Breite=255&Quer=55&Felge=17&weiter=0&kategorie=6&Ang_pro_Seite=15&Transport=P&dsco=135

They have stainless belts which makes the sidewalls stiffer, a good thing for Ohio potholes! I did change over from Monroe SS shocks to the Gabriel Ultra with this change - the combination of these tires and the Monroes was just too harsh. With the Gabriel Ultras they ride quite nice. Traction really is good, and yeah... I'm not sure why they are popular with the "drifting" crowd except for the fact that they are supposed to have decent tread wear.

Tires and car both look great!

Have you tried KYB Gas-A-Just shocks? I've been planning to swap out my Monroe SS shocks for a while now...I think they've made my dash rattle. Ha! Was planning to go with KYB's but had not heard about the Gabriels.

Welcome back by the way!

-Mike

I use the Gabriel Ultra G63375. I think Autozone usually has them cheap, around $25 each, and I think RockAuto has some on wholesaler closeout for $20. These are valved nicely for our cars. I actually think the Monroe SS is too harsh and can even induce understeer if you hit a bump or pothole while taking a corner too aggressively. They are so stiff I think the wheel rate can actually spike and break traction. To me the car feels much more sure-footed with the Gabriels.

BTW, Crovo was the first to point these out. I now have them on two of my cars.

I just left the Monroe SS 550013 in the rear for now - they aren't as bad on that axle as they were on the front.

Thanks for the info. I may give those a shot. The SS are nice and solid, and Texas roads are pretty smooth, but on potholes or expansion joints, it hits hard

Finally someone sees things my way,.
The trend for thicker sway bars,. tightening up rebound rates,. stiffer springs etc,.
all nice if you are working the car hard on nice smooth surface, but the reality of street driving is the roads SUCK! A softer sprung car IS way easier to drive harder,.on regular roads,.
and these great big rear sway bars that folks love the LOOK of, well they'll hang the tail out easy,. and the next thing you know, you're driving opposite lock,. which looks cool and all like a hollywood movie,. and folks are real impressed,. but just like a burnout is more of a statement of lack of traction rather than a statement of how fast a car is,. so is sliding the ass end around a statement of how poorly th back end will stick,.
I do drive my cars hard,. i have some twisty country roads up here,. and the biggest difference to any of the cars is rebound control,.
I get a big kick out of driving down on top of so called 'sporty cars, with a 4500lb rolling old monster,.sometimes the body lean is good as it will increase the ground pressure just right on the outside tires,. and the car is very predictable when its has gone past the point of 100% adhesion, and the tires are nicely bent at a 30deg angle to the ground,.
As kevin mentioned its scary when you into an on/off ramp merging under full throttle on a long decreasing sweeper onto another freeway,(at nick speeds) and you hit the expansion joint halfway thru the corner,. a rock stiff suspension will give you a thrill,.BTDTGTTS
Nick

Nobody sees things like you Nick...

Hey Nick never heard it explained that way but you make a very good argument for a large
softly sprung car versus one with trucklike compression and rebound.
Just look at the way the cars in Nascar dive during heavy braking and the way they handle on the road courses and these are 3600 lb cars.
Ultimately I enjoy a great handling car but I have to have a smooth ride first and formost.
Kevin please keep the info on your wagon coming because its going to be fun.
Take Care
Jim Gordon

The NASCAR cars dive because they want them to. If they did not want them to, they would have designed antidive into the front end. Back in the 50s, Chrysler put antidive geometry in the Chrysler, Desoto, and the others in that line. They could hang a teacup from the front bumper less than a 1/2 inch from the ground, and slam on the brakes from 60 mph without breaking the cup.

Hey Fred thats pretty much what I said.The cars only do what the engineers want them to do.
Like I am suppose to believe they hung a teacup off the front end of a racecar as a way of
measuring brake dive.
Hey Kevin I have worked at both Pep Boys and Goodyear and how much lead weight a car
tire takes to balance usually has a direct relationship with the quality of the tire.At Pep Boys
we often had to break the tire loose from the bead and rotate it 180 degrees to hopefully
reduce the amount of weight needed to balance it.
Now balancing the Goodyear tires rarely took a lot of lead although on any performance car
with really nice rims,I always rotated the tire around because I hated the way it looked with
a bunch of weight either taped or hammered on the rims bead.I use to use mineral oil on the beads so it would be easier to rotate the tire around without a lot of straining the gonads.I
had the unique pleasure of working at the Goodyear store closest to the Fort Eustis Army
Base when Firestone had the largest recall in tire history.Firestone had the govt contract for
all the tires on vehicles up to 3 tons and simply sent all Firestone equipped vehicles to a
Goodyear store for replacement.Our back lot could hold about 25 vehicles and we stayed
very busy for months changing those worthless Firestone tires that all weighed 50 to 60
pounds each and were 40 inches tall.All Done Jim Gordon

Those were the street cars that they did the teacup thing on. It was in their advertising on TV.

I was there in the 50s just not to aware of my surroundings yet.
Jim Gordon

phantom 309 wrote:

Finally someone sees things my way,.

Uh oh...

Yep, after trying several combinations I am of the opinion that the shocks need to be valved appropriately for the springs. I started this journey with stock wagon springs cut one coil and Monroe SS shocks. That combination was unbearable. Those springs with the stiff shocks caused the car to skip over bumps so much that it was constantly understeering. Plus it was always on the bump stops. I put ZQ8 bump stops in place, and it kept the car from bottoming out so harshly, but it was still a problem - the ZQ8s caused the wheels to loose traction if I were to hit a bump.

I then tried a slightly stiffer spring, the Moog 5030 cut one coil, along with the ZQ8s and Monroe SSs. That was a bit better, but the car still would hop and skip over the road a lot. I then removed the ZQ8s and went back to the factory bump stops. That was a huge improvement. It allowed the car to stay in control on rough roads much better because I didn't have the sudden change in spring rate half way through the suspension travel. Still, the car was understeering anytime washboard pavement showed up (which happens every time I drive in Ohio). This latest tweak moving to a softer shock was a big improment. Now the car stays stable on Ohio roads most of the time.

So... my take is that if you want to lower a wagon you'll need slightly stiffer springs, but I wouldn't go too crazy. IIRC, the Moog 5030 is only about 20% stiffer than a stock wagon spring... and that's kinda necessary since lowering the car takes away that much travel. I should also mention that some folks have reported bad results with the Moog 5030. Not sure if it's a QC issue or if there was a revision at some point... but some folks have said that spring is too soft. I have them in three of my cars and I like the results of all of 'em.