Quote:
Originally Posted by theburz
For those of you that have gone for a 16in wheel but a meatier tire (say a 50 as opposed to the usual 45), what differences (if any) do you notice in how the car behaves?
I track my car a bit and I'd like to know how that setup would be on the street as well as the track.
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Basically you have more tire suspension, both vertically and laterally. More rolling comfort and more forgiving taking bumps in corners. More forgiving, progressive if you will, in communicating grip loss. More movement laterally also but in my opinion that helps feeling weight transfer easier. Less rotating inertia keeps the wheels down better and helps acceleration/braking. In theory the shoulder can roll over sooner but if you use the right tire for the purpose it's not a problem, the car isn't that heavy. AE86 and MX-5 have tracked successfully on 14"-15" for decades, and with the larger tire circumference for the ft86 platform, 16" is right up there. Plenty use 16" for tracking in Japan. This is NA, if you run FI then perhaps you need to run bigger because you need bigger brakes. Comments above are also disregarding tire width, easier to run wide on 17"+ but that can often be debated how necessary or functional that is esp. on NA cars. Much depends on track and ambient temperatures.