Goodyear MT's good/bad?

I'm a new owner of a 99 EB Explorer AWD and I want to upgrade the tires from the Firestone AT to the Goodyear MT's. My Firestones are 225/70R/16 and the only size close in the Goodyear is a 305/70R/16. Will this change in size hurt the performance of my truck? Can anyone suggest a better tire combination for off roading. I race motocross and usually go off road to outlaying tracks. Thanks. I love this site!

Hey, an Apache driver! Cool, have you done loops in them yet?

About the tires, anything is possible as long as your pockets are deep enough. I did a simple conversion (I'm not very good with the metric system yet!) on your tires, you're going from about a 28.5" to a 33".

There are a couple posts on the Torsion Bar IFS set ups, it will give you an additional 1.5" after it settled and add-a-leaf in the rear. Even with this, I doubt that a 33" will fit without some serious rubbing (fenders, radius arms, etc.).

Are your wheels wide enough, 16x8 or larger?

Finally, new lower gears if you want to maintain or improve the performance of the vehicle. I saw a post previously that some of the newer Explorers come with 4.10. Check to see if yours comes with the 4.10. If it does, you could keep the existing gears but the performance will suffer a little bit.

Probably not what you want to see..., may be you should look at other brands with MT tires (Bridgestone, BFG, Dunlop, Yokohama, etc.) and not go with such a large tire set up.

I would probably stay away from the Good year MT's. I friend of mine had them on his Nissan and they cupped out REALLY BAD after about 20K. They do make a nice hummmm going down the street though!

Just my 2 cents....

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Big Worm