Ordered a pair of wheels and drag tires last week and the wheels came in this evening and the tires are supposed to be here tomorrow.

Wheels are a pair of RaceStar Drag Stars, 15x8 with a 5.25" BS. These are the uni-lug style that RaceStar is closing out and not making anymore. They were on sale for $119.95 each, shipped, at McCormack Racing, and that price included lugs, washers and chrome bolt-in valve stems. And they even sent me a spare lug nut and washer!

I know some have had issues with the uni-lugs and their offset washers but they are the same as the old time Cragar wheels uni-lugs and washers and I've installed lots of those wheels so hopefully I won't have any issues with these.

The tires I found on ebay, they are BF Goodrich Drag Radials, 275/60R15. These are the Grand Daddy of all drag radials, they were the first and I've used them before and they work really well. I even have a set for my Lightning. They were only $239 for the pair including shipping.

Couldn't beat either of those deals and I tried, I searched the web thoroughly before buying.

 

"Houston, we have a problem..."

The tires were sitting were sitting by my front porch today when I got home from my delivery. So, I loaded them and the wheels up and took them down to the tire store to get them mounted and balanced. Was watching the guy start to spin them up in the balancer, "uh-oh!" comes from the guy. I asked what was up and he tells me the wheel is bent! He spun it up again to show me and sure enough the dang thing is running out by a pretty good amount. It balanced out good with only 1.5 oz. of weight but I guess I am going to have to send it back to McCormack racing. Was too late to call them today so will have to call them in the a.m.

I really hate when stuff like this happens.

 

Well, I just couldn't stand it so I went out a put the new wheels and tires on the car to try them out.

The offset washers were no biggie, just like the old timey Cragars. Only took me about 15 minutes and I was not hurrying at all, included looking for my thin wall 13/16" impact socket(didn't find it...).

Went for a spin around the neighborhood(neighbors always love when I do that, NOT!) and came back to the house and torqued the lugs again. Went back out to my test track to put them to the test. On the way over I did note that these tires/wheels are nowhere near as smooth as my stockers, could feel a little rougher ride so I guess the slightly bent rim was probably contributing to that. Got to the test track and gave it a rev and let the clutch out hard and got a little squeal out of them and then a little bog and then off I went. Ran it up to almost trap speed and felt very little excess vibration.

So, I'm in a quandary now, send the one bent wheel back or just keep them and run them as is...

I'm also a little surprised by how far they stick out of the fenders. Previous pics I've seen didn't look like that much, almost reminds me of the 70's!

Pics...

Pay no attention to the dirt, been doing nothing but raining here and my garage extension isn't finished yet so the car still sits outside.

 

You know that old "Hee-Haw" deal about "if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all"???

Well, seems that is me with these wheels!

Went out this morning to put the Brembo wheel back on and the lugs on one wheel were all loose. Pulled the wheel off and all the lugs were messed up on the end, they had all bottomed out against the brake rotor. Pulled the other side off and all was fine on it, no bottomed out lugs. Set the wheels side by side and started checking them out and found out that the lug holes in one wheel were machined 3/8" deeper than the other allowing the lugs to stick out the back side of the wheel and bottom out on the rotor.

Got my camera out and took some pics, called McCormack racing and they asked me to e-mail the pics to them, just waiting now to hear back from them.

I REALLY REALLY HATE THIS KIND OF STUFF!!!

 

Well, McCormack Racing stepped right up and they are sending me a new pair of wheels. They are going to pull them first and spin them up on their balancer to check for true and inspect the lug holes to make sure they are right before sending them out and they are replacing the lugs that got messed up. They are sending out a call tag to get the others picked up.

So, hopefully fedex won't bend up the next set and next week I will be back in business.

Thanks McCormack Racing!

 

It doesn't sound like you are having much fun. At least McCormick is giving you plenty of support. I hope you have better luck with the new ones!