Help with tire selection

Admittedly I stumbled upon this forum while doing some research and it seems to be an autocross oriented forum. 
 

I have a 2000 Chevy Camaro SS that I'm looking to replace the tires on. I don't track the car but may want to dabble in autocross events in the near future.
 

I wanted to go with a 315/35/17 in the rear but in that size the only offerings are the toyo extensa hp 2 all season, 888r, nitto 555 g2, r2, nt05, Mickey Thompson street comp and et street ss. None of these seem to be good dual purpose street and autocross tires. They either focus on straight line performance or track use. 
 

I am considering running 275/40/17 or 285/40/17 on all 4 corners. The 275 opens up a ton of options and the 285 really only offers the continental extreme contact sport and sport 02. 
 

what is a great dual purpose street tire that can work good on an autocross course without needing replacement quickly 

Will these tires need to be exposed to or driven in freezing temperatures?

Realistically you need to bump up the wheels to 18" to get options if you plan on dual-purposing the car for daily driver duties and autocross.

Having had a couple Camaros, 275 and 285mm is more than enough, especially if you get the right compound.  315mm is just overkill.  Looks great, but no real benefit other than adding stress to the 7.625" rear which is already on the weak side.

18s will open up more options, but if you have options in 275 and 285 on a 17, I would do that.  Since this is a street car most of the time, that also allows for proper tire rotations which can really extend their life.

The only tires you mentioned that I have used were the 888s.  Insane grip, but mine lasted 12,000 miles on my Impala SS before they were down to the wear indicators

I started autocrossing in a 4th gen Camaro as well.

If you're just starting out and it's going to be a dual purpose car that sees significant street miles, then a ~300TW class tire like the Conti in 275-285 width is just fine for now. An older version of those is actually exactly what I ran on mine and liked them quite a bit as a dual duty tire. Good compromise of decent wear life and grippy enough without being too much so as to mask mistakes and hinder the learning process.

 Eventually, if/when you decide to get serious about auto x, you're going to want to step up to a 200TW class tire, assuming you're running a street tire class, but they'll wear/heat cycle much more quickly. Better off as a dedicated auto x setup.

What size are the wheels you have, or do you plan to buy a new set? As mentioned, 18s will open up a lot more options. Also, I would definitely NOT recommend a staggered setup, run the same size on all four corners.

For a dual purpose car Id run a square 275/40/17, and for a maximized autox setup Id run a square 315/35/17.

Im partial to 17s on these cars, some of the newer tires are only available in the wider sizes in 18s though. RE71rs for example is only available up to a 255 in a 17 and available as a 275/35/18.

In reply to Gearhead22 :

Welcome to our forum, and just making sure that you saw our tire guide: Ultimate track tire guide | 200tw, 100tw, street-legal track and R-comps.

For an autocross tire that also works on the street, I’d start by looking at the Super 200s and Endurance 200s. The Supers will be faster, the Endurance tires will offer more life.  

+1 for switching to a square setup. Assuming this is a summmer-only tire for mainly street use and occasional non-pointy-end autocross, the ECS or ECS02 could be good choices. The Michelin PS4S would be ideal for that if there's a size option to make those work, but they're expensive.