what affect will staggered overall diameter wheels have?
 

asking due to a conversation with a friend earlier, about what affect +/- this setup would have on a cars performance/ mpg/ anything

for example, a 225/35/17 front and a 265/35/18 rear tire, 9% larger overall diameter (this is assuming the rear tire is the stock fitment on a rwd car)

his thinking is the speedo/mpg would be unaffected as the rear tire is the same size, but the smaller front would be lighter and less rolling resistance like a pizza cutter on a drag car. but the main reason is the appearance of the 17/18" stagger

my thinking is it would affect the handling adversely, but thats just my assumption.

the tires will have different shape contact patches and will heat/cool at different rates

adverse effects? i'm not an expert, but the car will handle differently

personally i don't think that in the stock application it would have anything positive but if you were making big power and had crazy aero then it would

If you are going for looks then go for it. Yet if you are going for handling then thats a different story. With that width in the rear, you will have a shit ton of grip and a very wide and beffy tire which means more weight and more stress on the drive line if you run a sticky tire. The wider tire you go the more weight you carry thus the more power you will need to move that mass as well as stop it. Second, you will get more understeer because you have so much grip in the rear and little grip in the front. the purpose of wide rears is the give high horse power car more rear grip to eliminate just spinning the tires. Unless you are going to drag the car with 300+ hp i wouldnt go very wide in the rear. Like I stated before, if you are going for looks do what you want and what makes you happy but if you want it to handle then I wouldnt go that route.

adding some understeer?

True, but thats the same with any stagger. We were focusing on the impact of the overall tire diameter changing. Like on the frs, if you go from a 215/45/17 to a 235/35/18 it will throw off the speedo, affect gearing, affect mpg all because of the diameter change (assuming no change in weight, rolling resistance, aero, etc)

But he was thinking since the drive tires were staying the same, it would not have any of that affect to go smaller in the front. He wants a 17/18 stagger, but to keep the oem diameter up front he would have to run a fatter sidewall to make up for the -1" rim, and he wants all 4 corners sidewalls to match. I think im stating this the best i can

I know what ur saying, but thats stock in the rear, what hes looking to do is go smaller in the front for looks but doesnt want to adversely affect the car

If my math is right, the rears are at a 2.78% variance from stock. Not too much to make a huge difference in MPG.

You should expect a bit of understeer with the wider rear but unless you're driving aggressively, you likely won't notice it on a DD.

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Assuming he isnt getting forged wheels, in terms of weight.

Car in question is not an frs/brz. Stock rear fitment. Smaller front.

Let me put this in simpler/frs lingo...

Lets say i have stock 215/45/17 , what happens if i put a 215/45/16 on the fronts?

The front end will be closer to the ground. Slightly less traction, slightly lower profile tire.

http://mcgrefer.com/sizeinfo/width-2...page-1-profile

Effect of stagger? Baller status, obviously.

Link doesnt seem to open for me.

Agreed, in this scenario the nose will be .5" lower.

Less traction? Its still a 215 wide... Could you explain? Unless u mean the contact patch from front to back is smaller as the circumference is 4% smaller.. But thats so small it wont be noticed.

Lower profile? A 215/45 is = 215/45 exactly