NJ Steves Pit Viper Revival

[njsteve]

Tires! Yeah no-one really makes the 335/35x17 out there other than Michellin (and Hoosier?) once in while for this application.

When I replaced the throwout bearing earlier this year I sprung for a new set of Michellins from Jon B. The old gal drives real nice now.

The old XGTZs she was sitting on were "somewhat" unsafe at this point. I have several sets of zero-mile, assembly-line Michellin XGTZs that Team Viper gave me, that are 30 years old and would make for perfect restoration sets but otherwise could double as hockey pucks if Andre the Giant played hockey. No cracks in the rubber but they are fossilized plastic now.

The XGTZs were dangerous tires even when new as the rubber compound they developed for this application gave zero transition warning when it was about to lose grip at the edge of adhesion. And with the 50/50 weight distribution, the cars would instantly swap ends, repeatedly, until they hit something immoveable that would stop the spin. Lots of 1992 and 93 Vipers were wrecked due to the XGTZs when they were new. Dodge pretty much immmediately went to the Michellen Pilot series as a replacement after about a year or two for the Gen II cars with the updated (more drive-friendly) suspension (1995 to 2002). The Gen I cars had basically a race car suspension and took a lot of focus to drive safely.