Jakpro1

Thinking of buying a set of rims for the rear from Luke and Tirerack.com and putting a set of Drag Radials on them

Luke is not in yet and the guy at Tirerack was wondering if the 275 35 18 would make fender clearance. Anyone running this setup....stock rims 9"x18 with the 275 35 18 Drag Rads without problems....

Trying to make test and tune night and hoping to have Luke overnight them to me.

Lemme know soon as you can

Thanks guys.

Jak

rguy

As far as I know, this is not a problem in the slightest. The E is tubbed wider than the C and the gets 265's at 19" diameter with no problem. You are talking about only 10mm more than what will fit on the C. Plus I believe the drag radials have fairly rounded shoulders and I have heard of people running 275 drags on their E55's.

BMWEATR

its what i have they work awesome! get the bfg's!

macmtr

You will not have a problem. I have that exact tire with that size, and even w/ 3 people in the back seat, they never rubbed. Enjoy!!!

Macmtr

DerekFSU

Ditto. I am running those exact tires on OEM E55 rims and it's fine. I even autocrossed with them and no problems.

If you have the option, get the OEM E55 rims. I like the stealth appeal. Meaning- one of the first things you look for at the track when sizing up a car is the rear tires. Most folks run different rims in the back when they are switching to slicks or DR's at the track. If a car has mismatched rims, that's a dead giveaway that they are switching their tires. The stock rims draw no attention, hence the stealth appeal IMO.

rguy

What's all this BS about these tires being noise? Any truth. Let me preface by saying obviously high speed tires are more noisey than all-season tourers, but some say they are awesome and some say they suck. I can't figure out how this can be that polarizing, but on the boards I have found that most people think like I do. Is this a good Mercedes' tire? Or, are we giving everything up for the sake of extra traction (which I am not exaclty misaligned with)?

I need to quit rockin' that ganja, because I spelled noisy two wrong ways in the same post! Lo siento.

Gid_E_Up

ditto

saber

I have the exact set-up for the track and I had had no problems

rguy

As to the noise?

rguy

Hello? Anybody?

DerekFSU

I have not noticed any differences.

Fast55

The BFG's aren't noisy, but they don't handle like a Pilot Sport either, so yes, you are giving up handling for traction.

rguy

Thanks everyone. I just want to plant the sucker, but I am not looking to miss out on the corners. I hate not being able to use more than 1/10 of the throttle on a hot day with the killjoy light flashing. LSD is in the works, but without the rubber to meet the road, I don't know how much good it is going to do.

Jakpro1

I LOVED running drag radials full time on my car, but lived in constant terror of on/off ramps....there are many guys who will tell you they autocross these tires and love to corner on them, but BFG themselves will tell you this is 100% NOT what the tires were designed for. They were designed for lateral massive acceleration only.

I have studied the heck outta this topic and discovered that you really can NOT have it all. Closest thing I found is like a BFG KD radial ..NOT the KDW. The KD is super soft compound so grip should be pretty nice on acceleration and pretty nice on twisties...but again, it will not outperform the Drag Radial on straight line...and not outperform PS2's on corners.

Luke at tirerack.com was talking to me about full competition tires, but I just called it quits when I discovered that there really isnt a product made that launches like drag rad's and handles like ps2's. Guess it's just not physically possible at this time.