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Size Q78-16 Interco Tires plus Wheel Vintiques vintage steel wheels Installed

22K views 50 replies 16 participants last post by  Lloydrage 
#1 · (Edited)
A few of you were interested in another thread that chronicled my evolving solution to what I wanted in an exclusively off-road wheel/tire package, something I could put on for a trip to the mountains or out to Moab or Colorado, but not run as a daily.

In my search I was stymied because I really wanted to stay in the 285mm range (11"ish) rather than going with the ubiquitous 12.5. In fact, other than the 285/75-18, I couldn't find anything taller than my 285/75-17 BFG KM2s that wasn't also at least a 12.5" wide tire.

Ultimately, Forum member Sicarii suggested a size I'd never heard of -- Q78. Interco makes a Super Swamper in Q78-16, but other than that they seem to be thin on the ground. The nominal specs were 36x11, darn near perfect for me!

After some waffling over the fact they're bias plies and have a 1" deep lug, so on-road travel was likely to be torture, I finally pulled the plug last Monday. Ordered from Amazon, of all places -- few people carry these tires. Price was very good for a larger-than-35 option, being delivered for 297.89 ea, $1489 for five. Delivery was an amazing 3 days, coming in on Thursday. Free shipping of 350# of tires and it came in 3 days.

Before going into any specifics on the tires, I'll tell about the wheels.

I've always admired what Forum member Espo78 did about four years ago when he used a Wheel Vintiques 15" steel wheel, painted white like his Jeep, to achieve an early-70s CJ vibe. So I started researching the 16" version of same. Turned out to be cheap ($535 for 5, delivered, including state sales tax, but shipping was free) from Summit Racing. And delivery was even quicker than the tires -- these arrived on Wednesday, as though they had been Amazon Prime! :)

My plan was to paint the wheels Anvil. I had one can lying around. Sprayed one wheel as a test when they came in, and ordered six more cans of Anvil. Unfortunatly those haven't arrived yet (For comparison to the tires and wheels, the six cans weighed about 4 pounds and cost me 14 bucks to ship, and I still don't have them!) Anyway, I also had some Rustoleum in a very close color, so I decided to lay down four coats over the weekend in that dark gray so there'd be a good basecoat before I sprayed the Anvil. Of course I couldn't wait to get the tires mounted so I just went ahead and did that with the dark gray paint. It's not as blue as the Anvil but I'll tape the tires up and spray Anvil whenever the paint finally comes in.


Okay, I'll give a couple teaser photos to end this post, and then another post or two with details and measurements and some more photos so this one doesn't get too long. Cheers!



 
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#2 ·
I took measurements of the tires unmounted. Amazingly, Interco must be the only mfg. who actually builds what they claim. Here you can see the height is a robust 36.0” Width of the lugs is 9.25 at the widest. Weight came in at 65.8# (and it’s a 16 so more sidewall than 17s.) My 285 BFGs spec at about 62, iirc, so this is a light tire for as tall as it is.



The wheels, of course, gave back some of the weight savings but weren’t too bad overall at 30.4#. They have a nice 4.5BS, which helps keep them from disappearing back in the wheelwell. With a standard big 12.5” tire I like the looks of a 5.2” BS.
So the combo (without tire weights) is 96.2. Pretty damn heavy when you’re lifting it to the spare carrier. But my KMs in 285 on OEM 17” Rubicon/Willys wheel weigh 87.0 with 9000 miles of wear, so they’ve probably lost, what, a half-pound of rubber? Anyway, the delta is about 9 pounds, and I can live with that.
 
#3 ·
For comparison to the 285 KM2s, here you go:

Both mounted and balanced, KM2 at 30psi, Interco at 25 where I'll run them:


Here the weight of the Jeep is on the KM2 so it's slightly unfair, but a good way to see them together.



And one of each:

 
#4 · (Edited)
Wow, just wow. I love those wheels and tires. Why didn't you just buy Saltas and KM2s so I wouldn't have wheel and tire envy?

And have you flexed those front tires yet? Just looks like you may have to trim that front bumper.

Edit: Just saw that you have already turned the front bumper into a stubby. What winch are you running? I am currently looking for one.
 
#8 ·
Ha! You were one of the goaders. This is mostly your fault. :)

Winch is a Zeon 10S. The one without the wireless controller, but with synthetic line. Got a great, great deal from Twisted Jeeps in Moab last year when I tore up the mounting bracketry for my XRC9.5Comp. :( I had them install it since I had 2 more weeks of being there.

 
#5 ·
Here's how the old and new compare:

................................Q78.............KM2

Off Jeep Height...........35.75..........33.75
On Jeep Height............34.75..........33.0
Tread width.................10.0...........8.75
Sidewall width..............11.0..........11.0

To-top-of-door-sill.........25.75.........24.0

Width beyond front fndr..2.5............2.0
Width beyond rear fndr...1.5............1.0



 
#6 ·
The only trouble I ran into was the 16" wheels digging about a 1/16" furrow in the front calipers on my test drive. Ground them down and all is well.

Short test drive with nothing more that 40mph. They sound like a C141 landing about a half mile away. Not overpowering but a steady loud drone. Definitely not a daily driver tire unless you have a 2 mile commute. But totally bearable for the drive to the trailhead.

I'll be trailering them to Utah (1700 miles) next month -- I was toying with just driving on them (long distances without much starting and stopping don't tend to wear tires down too much), but no way I'll do that unless they quiet down considerably. I'm leaving them on till then to get used to them.

They also feel rough and uneven at very low speeds on pavement, like under 10 or maybe 15. Above that they smooth out and feel fine.









New rear bumper will be delivered tomorrow. Looks like the OEM sticks into the wheel well about an inch, and I need that inch.

 
#16 ·
The only trouble I ran into was the 16" wheels digging about a 1/16" furrow in the front calipers on my test drive. Ground them down and all is well.

Short test drive with nothing more that 40mph. They sound like a C141 landing about a half mile away. Not overpowering but a steady loud drone. Definitely not a daily driver tire unless you have a 2 mile commute. But totally bearable for the drive to the trailhead.

I'll be trailering them to Utah (1700 miles) next month -- I was toying with just driving on them (long distances without much starting and stopping don't tend to wear tires down too much), but no way I'll do that unless they quiet down considerably. I'm leaving them on till then to get used to them.

They also feel rough and uneven at very low speeds on pavement, like under 10 or maybe 15. Above that they smooth out and feel fine.









New rear bumper will be delivered tomorrow. Looks like the OEM sticks into the wheel well about an inch, and I need that inch.
As a fan of the skinny tire look I can say they look fantastic!!!! I ran a lot of interco tires in my younger days, always bias ply never radials ( I don't even think they offered radials at the time) always felt uneven at low speeds on the highway but felt like they evened out at higher speeds. They are gonna get flat spots when they sit for a bit but they smooth out as they warm up.
Your going to love them on any off-road applications! They are beasts. They should be able to take you anywhere you want to go.
 
#9 ·
Do you? I like the gray wheels by themselves or on another color Jeep, but feel like they're just too close to Anvil to pull it off. It looks to my eye like I was trying to match it and missed.
 
#12 ·
Looks great
 
#13 ·
damn is it wrong for a man to covet another man's wheels..those are going to absolutely rock offroad. Did interco spec what highway pressure you needed to run them at? Also how did they look with about 15 psi? I can see a set of these mounted on some stock steelies with spacers.
 
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#15 ·
Like everyone else, I dig it too.

Was mentioned above, you may have to change out your bump stops to flex those. I'd guess you need 3" front and rear...
 
#17 ·
Thanks for the advice. Is there a way to determine definitively if I need them, and if so how much?
 
#20 ·
Loud Tires Save Lives! :)
 
#22 ·
I'm *not* a pizza cutter guy, and still think that looks great! Nicely done!

Bias ply tires like low pressures, so if you run "normal" street pressures you may find you're running on the center of the tire. Off road, single digit pressures will rule the day. Did we have the ZUKlock conversation? For next to no money you can keep them on the wheel at essentially zero pressure.

Looks great, man.

Mark

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
#24 ·
Man, those look fantastic!!! Same height on the Jeep as my Toyo OC MTs in 37" (at least that's what they are now after 55k miles)

Those bias plies will be awesome off-road, I'm always jealous when I ride with the bias ply guys. For the ultimate, weld on some bead lock rings and drop those babies to about 5 lbs, ain't nothing stopping you then :D
Weld-On Bead Locks - Products - Chassis Unlimited

Anywho, congrats on a job well done :thumb:
 
#26 ·
For the ultimate, weld on some bead lock rings and drop those babies to about 5 lbs, ain't nothing stopping you then :D
Weld-On Bead Locks - Products - Chassis Unlimited
And ruin the looks of those wheels? Blaspheme, you say! :) Seriously, though, $6 worth of polyurethane roofing sealant will keep those on at well under 5psi, be completely invisible, weigh nothing, and make the tire no more difficult to remove than normal. (Google ZUKlocks)

Mark

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
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#27 ·
I will agree they look amazing.
I ran super swampers on my XJ for a while, and, literally wore shooting range muffs for any lengthy highway driving. So, trailering is the right decision.
If you get out on the streets in the rain, you will be very surprised just how poorly they behave under braking (well, all the time, but driving like a sane person there is no issue). Just warning you, leave lots of room for those unpredictables.
When I finally could not stand them any longer I switched to KM2's, and, outside of mud, the KM2's have more traction on sand, gravel, very noticeably better on rocks, and especially on wet rocks. and no comparison for daily driving of course. Now, in mud, the KM2's may as well be bald by comparison, the SS'ers are that good in the mud. Outstanding mud tire.
So, having said that, if you are headed to Moab, or any rock type place... you might want to throw your KM2's on the trailer as well.
My .02.

I'm guessing there is a lot of loose soil and mud in GA. If so, those tires are going to kill it on your home turf.
 
#28 ·
Thanks for the benefit of your experience, Mike. I'm actually planning to drive the Jeep to Moab on my KM2s, and trailer the Super Swampers behind on a 4x6 utility trailer, so I'll have both sets should I feel the need to swap back to the KMs.
 
#29 ·
Actually looking closer at your pics, the rear might rub on the inner fender that mounts to the body. It looks like it is lower than the fender seam in a few places...
 
#30 ·
Good eye! I've already trimmed the DV8 fender mounting flange to have the same curved contour as the pinched Jeep body seam. Inexplicably DV8 made it go straight across so that it hangs down 3/4" below the fender line at 12:00.
 
#31 · (Edited)
Well, here we are 10 days or so later and I've removed the new tires. They're safely stored on my trailer, ready for the long ride to Utah a week from today.

Some thoughts:

1) Everybody ought to have a set of these and mount them for around-town driving once a quarter or so. Because if you do, no matter how gnarly your regular MT radials are you'll think somebody replaced them with 80,000-mile-tread-life Michelin passenger car tires from a Lexus sedan. They will seem that good to you. You'll find your radio is absolutely blaring at you when you turn it on.

And then when you corner at more than 30mph, you'll think somebody switched the Super Swampers out for a set of 305/30-20 Pilot Sport Cup semi-slick track tires they handle so well.

Seriously, I was starting to think maybe my wheel bearings were going because things seemed to be sort of moaning and grinding, in addition to the obvious lug roar from the pavement. The whole Jeep experience felt like -- and I'm actually not being hyperbolic here -- I was driving a 120,000 mile YJ. Not totally archaic, but also not anything from this century.

Then I put the KM2s back on -- no model of road manners themselves -- and it was transformative. Everything quieted down. Everything smoothed down. Everything breathed a sigh of relief and got back to normal.

2) You will feel like you gained 35 horsepower. For some reason I didn't really notice the lost power when I switched to the 2" taller, 10-ish-pound heavier tire/wheel combo. I suppose the sensory assault of the sound distracted me. But when I went back to the 285 KM2s I immediately felt the increase in acceleration, and it was very noticeable and I'm sure would be measurable.

My takeaway here is this: if I had 37s (a tire that measured around 36") I would not be happy with 4.10s. I would find 4.88s to be equivalent to the 4.56s I have on my 34s. Now with 4.56s I wouldn't bother to change to 4.88, I'd just get used to it. But with 4.10s I would for sure.
 
#32 · (Edited)
^^^ Wow! No idea that post was so long. Sorry about that. Got to rambling.

Forgot to mention I had my G2 D44 front axle installed Friday, along with G2 Placer Gold axle shafts in the back. I also put in an Optima Redtop and installed the Enclosure panels on my Bestop Elements doors. Put the gas cans back on the fenders. Getting all ready to head out!

Oh, and there was some speculation from Pressurized about clearance when flexing. I put it on a fork lift. Had to take a little corner of the pinch seam at the bottom/rear of the rear wheelwell arches. Other than that it's perfect. The bumpstops on the G2 are a little taller than were on the D30 -- I think I'd have had to increase them otherwise.

Cheers!



 
#33 ·
The more I look at those tires on your Jeep the more I think it is time for some camouflage
 
#34 · (Edited)
:D

I think of it as a Navy-issue Jeep so it already IS camouflaged! You could never see it on the deck of a carrier from 2000 feet.

I wasn't in the service but my dad flew SBD dive bombers and TBF torpedo bombers from carriers in WWII, so that's my Jeep allegiance! :)





 
#35 ·
Yep you are already well on the way there.

 
#36 ·
I have some swim trunks exactly like that. Love them.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Field Tested

Wow. Stunning performance off-road, in rock and sand.

I'm in Moab for 10 days. It's Monday and I've been here since Thursday. I have a first-timer friend riding with me so I've re-done some old favorites as well as some new trails: Chicken Corners, Elephant Hill, Beef Basin, Lockhart Basin, Hell's Revenge, and an unnamed old mining trail on the west side of Hurrah Pass that was magnificent, if extremely rocky.

I've been running the Intercos at 10psi. Could probably run lower without problems -- I've put them through some side-load torture without event. But at 10 they ride so soft and grip so well that I don't see a reason to mess with them any lower. Some people report 4-6 psi usage with these. Not sure if that's with BLs or not -- I do not have BLs.

Last year I was here in essentially the same Jeep, only running 285/75-17 KM2s (34"). I am locked front and rear, 4:1 t-case. (Last year I had a built D30 up front, this year it's a G2 D44 and G2 rear axles in a stock 44, but these changes shouldn't make any difference in performance, per se.) And I was only willing to run my KM2s at 14psi.

What I have noticed is two things:

1) Comfort. At 10 pounds, or maybe it's something about the tread compound or flex of the sidewall, or the extra sidewall on the 16" wheel/36" tire vs. 17" wheel/34" tire -- whatever single item or combination of the above, the floaty feeling going down a trail covered in talus (4-8" diameter rock) is just remarkable. The body sways gently side-to-side, the tires deform themselves to absorb the big rocks, and the driver and passenger feel a sort of bouncy/floaty feeling, like you're drifting along on a cloud in slightly turbulent air.

2) Grip. Oh. My. Goodness. New levels. I'm a big fan of the KM2 on rock and if they had a size comparable to this I would only have one set of tires rather than a dedicated off-road set. But they don't and so here we are. But the SS's ability to claw it's way up a steep slick face (as found all over Hell's Revenge) or to scrabble it's way over a small boulder field at a 35 degree incline is nothing short of astonishing. I haven't actually tried anything yet that I couldn't have done last year, but the ones I have repeated have been considerably easier on the Jeep.

Needless to say, I drove the Jeep from ATL (1930 miles, all surface streets) on the KM2s, with the Super Swampers on a 4x6 utility trailer. I would attach a few pix but they're all in the camera except this phone shot:

 
#39 ·
sweet
 
#40 ·
Once you run a set of super swampers you really appreciate a set of radial tires. It is unreal the difference and the amount of traction you now have and never realized that you didn't have before. We ran super swampers and boggers up here all the time and yes they are old school tires, follow every groove in the road, ear piercing loud on tar, redefine bad traction on hard pack snow and ice, and have no desirable traits on tar-- but off road I have never ran a better tire. If you pick a set in Bias ply you can air all the way down to 5 PSI if you wanted with no worry. It is good to see you upgraded your front X since I have seen many a gernaded dana 30"s that could not handle the additional traction and weight of these tires up front--- not to mention the stock 2 piece AMC-20 rear axles on CJ's. They are a great tire but just not for everyone.
 
#41 ·
Keep the reports and photos coming!
 
#42 ·
I remember first time I used race tires on a track...

It was a total game changer. I had been building a track car out of a Miata, and when I turbo'd it up to 200 wheel hp (from about 105 stock) it took something like 2.5 seconds off my time on a short track. But when I changed from good hi-po street rubber to purpose-built track tires it took 4 seconds off! An amazing difference.

I feel like these Intercos are that. Sure, you can't "drive to the track" on 'em, meaning lots more trouble. But OMG, once you have them mounted up and deflated and get them on dirt or rock, they just absolutely crush!

I took them down to 9psi (despite saying I was happy at 10) on Tuesday, then down to 8 yesterday and today. They got better still at 8. One interesting note: I ran with 5 other JKs from a Colorado club yesterday, on Poison Spider. All were built pretty well (wheel spacers notwithstanding! :) ), mostly running 37" radials with a few 35s. All at least 12.5 and a couple at 13.5" wide.

The Rubicons in the group were able to do every element I was able to do, but the squealing and chirping of their tires was in marked contrast to the way these Intercos silently slunk up the side of anything I threw at them, only chirping in complaint when I was locked in back and turning on rock (they have to slip then, or else you destroy your diff or axle).

In fact, I'm hardly ever locking the front, and have cut way back on the rears -- only on loose talus or scree where there's nothing to really grip and I don't want one side spinning. On solid rock it's rarely called for so far, and I don't like to use it if not needed because of the way these tires resist slipping. In fact, if I wasn't upgraded on both axles, I'd worry about locking with these, especially the built and locked D30 I had last year. It did great with KM2s, but these are another world altogether.

If you have room in your life for a total no-compromises-to-streetability set of tires I can't think of anything not to like about these. At under $300 for a true 36" height as delivered, light weight, stellar looks, and off-road performance that will be hard to meet with a radial, I can't think of anything negative about them, as long as you stay off the Tarmac. I have gotten a tiny bit of chunking on some of the outer lugs, I noticed today, but that's with 12 major trails in the last 7 days so I don't think it's out of line.

Finally, I hope any readers won't take all this cheerleading as some sort of "it's MY tire therefore it must be perfect" nonsense. I'm rarely this totally positive about a product, but this one really has lived up to... I was going to say all the hype, but LOL, I never heard of them till forum member Sicario pointed them out to me a month ago, and there's like two dealers selling them in the world, with absolutely no advertising.



 
#43 ·
One thing to add to that is these tires will show you the true potential of your jeep-- and take you to places you haven't been before and beyond. Tires are everything and the first time I ran them I understood the meaning of tires are everything and cleared up my misconception that lockers make more of a difference then tires. A set of swampers or boggers even with a locker only in the rear will take you more places then most people can go with lockers and lesser tires. Bonus is you are not fighting the locker in the front trying to steer either. Try them in 2 wd locked in the rear and see what they'll do--you'll be surprised.
 
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