fcs13

First of all, I am not sure if this has already been discussed or not but here it goes... I am curious as to what size tire I would be safe going with if I went with a 17 inch wheel. I am also looking at dropping the car about 1 inch all around using the Tein S-Tech's and new shocks/struts. What would be a safe tire size to go with? I have had experience with the s-techs and 17's before on my old car (92 Nissan 240sx) but there was this huge gap left between the fender well and the tire. The only thing that I could see stopping a thicker tire was the front shock was to big in diameter. There was about 1cm of space between the corner of the tire and the spring base. I know that this could have easily been fixed using a wheel to hub spacer but then the camber and caster would have been in even worse shape. But a fix to the tire thickness issue none the less.



Now what I am trying to accomplish... I want to use 17's and the Tein's like I did before. I also want to use a bigger series tire instead of the 205/40/17. Maybe something like a 205/50/17 or maybe even 205/45/17. I know this is not THAT much of a difference in thickness but it is at least a difference either way you look at it. Maybe I can even go bigger than that but I dont know. Anyone had experience with this? Any info would be awesome, thanks in advance,



-Mr. B

fc3sboy1

205 is way way to narrow of a skin. i run 225/45r17 on frount and 255/40r17 on rear. if you do the math you will find out from the stock tire size on a 15" rim is very very close to 24.97 over all dia of the tire. a 225/45r17 is 25.972 dia. i run the 225 and the 255 on 8" wide rims and run JIC Majic FLT-A2 suspention and with the correct offset there is no problem fitting the frounts under the stock fender and trust me with only a 3/4" drop there is only about a 1/4" fender gap from the tire to the fender. looks great and the car handles well.





how to properly get the tire size with inch up wheels. formula example = convert the rim size to metric



17"=431.800mm now take a tire size,,,,,,,,, 225/45r17. multiply the width( 225 ) buy the sidewall ( 45% ) to get sidewall hight. 225x.45= 101.25mm.



now multiply that number by 2 cause there is a side wall on both sides of the tire ( 101.25 x 2 = 202.5 )



now take the total side wall and add it to the rim dia ( 202.5+431.800=634.300mm)



now to convert that to inches just take that final dia size and multiply by .03937 wich is the standard metric standard to us standard and you get this ( 634.3x.03937=24.972391)



here is a second example



18"rim =457.2

295/30r18

295x.30=88.5(88.5x2=177 ) 177+457.200=634.2(634.2x.03937=24.968454)



so a 295/30r18= 24.968 total dia.



now if you check the original tire size of any vehical you can easly figure out what tire will work and what tire may not, with this info at hand the only thing up to you is to determin the offset of the rim for proper spacing in the wheel well.



hope this helps.



randy



ps

metric conversion is .03937 just rember that cause it will come in handy. and i know there are others out there that use the 25.7 or the 24.7 what ever it is i cant remember cause i never liked using that way to convert but i have found that the .03937 has never failed on me for sizing or machining so i stick with it.

fcs13

Wow, this was WAY more than I was expecting, thanks very much. This did clear a lot up for me. I guess the wider tires/wheels are safe as long as I factor in the combo's. Thanks again, very helpful.