Rolling Stock

Our project car, The Grape Of Wrath, has a specific mission: go fast on the cheap. That doesn't leave a lot of room for looking good, especially if you've got a fourth-gen F-body like our 1994 Camaro Z28. The fact is that most wheel manufacturers have forsaken the fourth-gen F-body to move on to greener import pastures. If you've ponied up for a high-dollar three-piece custom wheel, chances are there isn't much left in your budget for super sticky drag tires. What a conundrum.

There are clearly two stories here, the wheels and the tires. First, the wheels.

We see a lot of Camaros and Firebirds, and what stands out is that there are precious few drag wheel designs that fit on fourth gens with a modicum of ease. Without naming names, you either get "stars" or "holes." And even then, you could be faced with making wheel spacers to clear front calipers, or converting to NHRA-mandated wheel studs to legally run shoulder-style lug nuts on some cars.

At the end of the day, even if you go through the trouble to mount the same ole "stars" or "holes," you've got the same look as everybody else. If you've been reading GMHTP, you know that looking like everybody else is one of our peeves, so we weren't about to ignore our own advice for our project car.

We looked everywhere, and when it seemed like we were running out of options, we asked our friends at the camaroz28.com bulletin board for advice. Soon, we got a reply from "90 Z28SS" in South Bend, Ind. "Get the Telstars. If you squint your eyes, they look like Bogarts. Get those." We hadn't really thought about Telstars. They've been around for a while and always looked good to us, which begged the question, how come we hadn't seem 'em on more late-model GMs? We asked "90 Z28SS" if he'd tried them on a fourth gen and he replied that they had originally been on his third gen when it was wrecked. The fronts were salvaged and now resided on his fourth gen.

But what about the rears? Finally, "FRDnemesis" of Charleston, S.C. piped up. "I am running the Telstar 13s on my Z all the way around. 15X4s on the front (needs no spacers), and 15X8s on the rear with a 275/50R15 Nitto. Yes, the max back spacing is five inches. But they do not stick out past the top of the rear quarter. They're flush. I have pics if you would like some. They look awesome!"

We saw his pics and had to agree, they did look awesome. Thank heavens for the Internet. We waited 5 seconds, then called Center Line. Incredibly, Center Line's tech department said Telstars wouldn't fit a '94 Z28. "But we have pictures!" we exclaimed. If you're starting to get the idea that Center Line Telstars are the best-kept secret for LT1-powered fourth gens, you'd be right.

The best news was how shockingly inexpensive these wheels are. The entire set of four can be had from a mail order outlet such as Summit for $477.80. (see Shopping Cart at the end). That kind of jack doesn't come close to buying even one custom three-piece wheel from some companies! Telstars are lightweight too. Our stock wheel/tire combo weighed 42 pounds each; that compares favorably to 29.5 pounds for our new front skinnies (wheel and tire) and 35.5 pounds for our slicks (wheel and tire). Doing the math shows a total loss of 38 pounds for the whole car. Save weight, save cash, turn heads; what's not to like?

Outside of looks, the only other justification for a wheel/tire package is performance, and our new tires from Mickey Thompson will deliver that too as our pony count begins to soar. Up front on our Telstar "pizza cutters" we chose the 26 x 7.5 Sportsman Front. These street-legal skinnies are a little heavier than Mickey Thompson's all-out drag-only frontrunner, but they're still very light and safe for the street too.

Speaking of the street, our other goal was to have a set of tires that we could bolt on at home and drive to the track with. We did just that and found them quite comfortable. The front skinnies had a slight understeer, but that was nicely compensated by the rear tire's slight tendency to oversteer. We took our time getting there and experienced zero difficulty on New Jersey's rutted highways.

Our Mickey Thompson ET Streets (size 26 x 10.5) aren't technically classified as slicks, but they might as well be. With a token set of thin rain grooves, the ET Streets should only be used in the dry (we've actually used them in a sudden deluge and they worked fine in a pinch). Most people with serious street cars far faster than ours report that the ET Streets perform identically to the ET Drag, Mickey Thompson's all-out drag-only slick. That's good because we're making zero compromise in the traction department all while vastly simplifying our trips to the track.

We did run into a slight snafu when we attempted to have the slicks mounted. One shop refused to mount them because of a sidewall notice warning not to mount the tires without inner tubes. Like most sportsman racers with street cars, we ignored that notice (hopefully not to our peril) and had them mounted at another store without incident. Relating to this, it appears the notice addresses the possibility that the tire could deflate under hard launches when inflation pressure is at or below 10 psi. Under these conditions, a natural rubber inner tube (M/T part No. 9552, $45.95 each) should be used in combination with rim screws. In fact, that's exactly what this author used on his low 10-second Mustang. We're taking a chance, but based on what we've seen, we think the risk is minimal. Total cost for our four Mickey Thompson tires: $485.80, not including mounting.

Shopping Cart*

CENTER LINE TELSTAR 13

15 x 4, part No. 135401547$219.90 (pair)

15 x 8, part No. 135806547$257.90 (pair)

MICKEY THOMPSON

26 x 10.5 ET Street $319.90 (pair)

26 x 7.5 Sportsman Front $165.90 (pair)

Total: $963.60

* all prices from Summit Racing

Appearance-wise, the Telstar's five-inch backspacing positions the rear tires at what we would say is the maximum negative offset allowable for a fourth gen. The edge of the rim is very close to the edge of the fender--one quarter inch more and TGOW would be in wire-wheel ghetto territory. Truthfully, an extra half-inch of backspacing would do wonders for this wheel (we're currently lobbying Center Line), but the looks work for us even without it. One additional note: the Telstars take factory-style acorn lugnuts, not the finicky shoulder lug (which have a washer and a sleeve that has to be guided into the stud hole). That makes the Telstar extremely easy to mount and an automatic pass through track tech inspection!