On Sat, 2011-07-02 at 21:36 -0700, Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote:
> it was uncannily smooth and steady..
> 86 Syncro Double Cab ..stock engine ..non-walk through in front, seat
> 3 in
> front, 3 in rear.
> and it had 27 X 8.50 R14 LT tires on .
> a *super nice * size iun 14 btw.
> a little hard to find these days.
> but that's asesome 14 inch tire..
> 27 X 8.50 R14 LT..
> that van .......drove like a porche or a mercedes..
> followed the road by itself I swear,

Wait -- what? I must have been asleep at the back of the class again. Do
27 X 8.50 R14 tires fit the rims on my van, which are stock and fit
185R14 tires?

> and ..never quite realized this ..
> with the engine outside of the box the people sit in ..
> it was super quiet inside.

To my ears, all the sound-absorbing you stick to door panels and
suchlike does little to reduce the overall noise in the van once rolling
at highway speeds. Probably 80% of the noise I hear is road noise,
transmitted into the cabin from the tires through the suspension. Can
really hear it when moving from one pavement type to another. The
majority of the energy is in the low frequencies, and is so loud that I
seldom bother turning on the subwoofer when driving because the acoustic
environment in the bass range is such a muddy mess. If there are tires
that are quieter, I'm all ears.

But, of course, for here we need "traction tires" (with the
snowflake/mountain emblem on the sidewall) to legally drive in many
places in winter, else we have to put on chains. That might narrow the
field a bit in terms of searching for "quiet" tires.
--
Rocky J Squirrel (Jack Elliott)