Larger Rear Wheels - Tacky or Acceptable?

[jaymesbry]

Originally Posted by RRnold

If they are AWD then the wider ones go in the front. Other than that, staggered wheels on this car is a must.

im kinda curious on this, why in the world would you want to do this on an AWD vehicle?

[NESW20]

Originally Posted by CyberFormula

when you guys say aggressive allignment, please ellaborate.

different camber and toe settings that changed the handling of the car. better handling but reduced tire life. the main one was increased rear toe-in. toe will wear tires the fastest.

-Mike

[scape]

i think a staggered setup might hassle up the handling.
the lotus and mr2 are staggered and it works but they also have bulk weight in the middle and rear end of the car, so more traction back there would be necessary to provide good traction and control. with a car that is FR, wider rear tires may impose on the handling and change the characteristics towards an understeer, which then would have to be worked on.
in all reality, it depends on your setup; if it is setup for staggered tires and a level of steer your comfortable with, then go for it. having a staggered setup may be nice if you want to run more grip and keep the frontend lighter, but the entire suspension would have to be setup for this.
i personally like the concept of lightness and wider rims and wider tires impose more weight, while at the same time provide more grip-- bit of a double edged sword if you ask me.

I ran some test numbers and came up with a good setup for where grip and weight meet in the middle while keeping up with the similar total tire dimension for matching the drive ratio:
265/35/18 is a good choice I think for big width-- it's just a bit smaller in total diameter size compared to the concept car's 225/40/19 so the drive ratio would appear the same.
now if drive ratio wasn't a big deal, and you wanted a lighter 17" setup, I'd shoot for 255/40/17.
while both these setups would have a larger sidewall than the concept, the tire/wheel rotational-weight would be reduced marginally, more so for the 17.
if you wanted to stick with 19's and keep a drive ratio similar 245/35/19 is one way to go, but the car may seem slower due to wider tires providing more grip and thus friction while at the same time not reducing the rotational-weight by being the same dimensions.
oh yeah, these are for all 4 tires, in a non-staggered setup

[Blokatos]

wtf?

[S2KtoFT86]

Originally Posted by Blokatos

wtf?

+1

[Biggie™]

Originally Posted by scape

i think a staggered setup might hassle up the handling.

I think people need to know how to actually set up suspension before they start thinking about how staggered wheels might effect a car that hasn't even been built yet.