[VintageLambo] 400gt tires

Hi All, Just cleaning up my files and found this old post re my 400gt tires. BTW, I"m very happy with the sumitomos, and at $50/each, hard to beat!(especially with all that new tire technology...) Cheers, Fred ---------------------- Thanks Alan, Bill and Jack for the tire info. Uh, thanks to TireRack.com too. :) Original tires (that I had on the car, boy were they shot...) were Pirelli 205VR15 Cinturato HS and Pirelli 205 15 tires. Jack is running VR205-65 15" Yokohama tires. Bill is running 225-70HR 15" BF Goodrich Comp TAs. TireRack recommended P225/70 HR15 HTR 200 Sumitomos(Rim Width Range 6.00 to 7.50). On the 205-65s Jack cautioned that "The disadvantage to these tires is the fact that you end up lower to the ground and must be extremely aware of dips and curbs!" I ended up going with the 225/70x15 Sumitomo because they matched Bill"s Comp TA size, and because they only cost $50 each! (I don"t plan on doing any Vegas-Reno high-speed runs in the near future...) TireRack has a neato "Drop Ship" deal where they ship the tires to a tire installer who has already agreed to work with them. This cost me $32 in freight, and unbelievably the tires arrived in 2 days (out of Reno). Sheesh, I couldn"t even drive to Reno for $32. I live in Pacifica (near SF) so I called several of the recommended installers (I think the TireRack list is almost 2000 long and you can search by closest to your address) and of course they couldn"t work with Borannis. Fortunately, a bit further away, about 10 miles, I found Waterfront Automobili (Ferrari Specialists) and Sal Garcia, the owner, said he could do it no problem. He recommended I get all new tubes and not mess with the existing ones. He suggested Kahn & Keville, the local Goodyear dealer, and they had them for only $15/each (Coker wanted $25 each, however read on, maybe I should have gone with them). The tube number is TP1415M. The problem with these tubes, as Sal pointed out before hand, is that the stem hole in my Boranni wheels is @.7" which is much larger than the new tube"s stem dia. The solution is a small plastic spacer or washer that fits on the stem to take up the slack and fill the hole. It"s possible that the tube from Coker Tires (www.coker.com) doesn"t need this spacer, I"m not sure, they would know. Their recommended tube is their number TR-13 (225/235R14/15 RADIAL) for $25.95. I was in a hurry so I went with the Goodyear. However, since the Goodyear didn"t have the spacer I needed to track it down, and found it at British Wire Wheel in Watsonville. Hey, it was a nice drive, and since they have a $50 minimum order and the spacers cost .25 each, they gave them to me. :))) "If it"s free, I"ll take three." (They gave me 5, no dummies they.) All of this went to Waterfront Automobili and Sheldon mounted and balanced the tires (beautifully, I might add, thank you Sheldon!) for $35/ea. He saved the little pieces that fit on and around the old valve stems and gave them to me in a baggie. Sal was very nice about the whole thing and since it took a couple of hours we sat around and talked about the Ferrari 330 GTS and 365 GT 2+2 that were being serviced there. The 330 was getting a rebuilt motor, which as of this writing is topping $30k. As for the actual Sumitomo tires on the 400GT -- hey, did I tell you they were only $50/ea? :"D Obviously, they are an improvement on the road, what with their modern technology and all. They really don"t look bad either. They have the same general profile as the original tires, but a bit beefier (wider). Hardly noticable, they don"t look out of place. Except the tread pattern is obviously "modern" and I"m not thrilled with the look of the tread where it wraps around to the side. Almost looks trucklike when the sun hits it just right. The option, of course, was to go with vastly more expensive tires to get t