Stock wheels + Upgraded Tires vs. Wider wheels + upgraded tires

[Firestorm_86]

Originally Posted by ZionsWrath

BLAAACK

Mmm... meaty without needing a 255 width.

I'm looking into some Bilstein B14's to pair with the added grip and to lower it a touch (30mm).

[DAEMANO]

Originally Posted by themajesticone

@ZionsWrath @Firestorm_86 @DAEMANO where do you guys go for wheels and tires online?

Tirerack for the tires. They buy at such a high volume, generally their prices can't be beat. However you may be able to get Discount Tire or America's tire to price match locally.

For wheels, generally the place with the best prices. Depending on what brand of wheel you're looking for I'd try Modbargains, Wheel Warehouse, Wheeldude, 1010tires, or NLmotoring.

I got my wheels from Evasive Motorsports in SF springs. They have a great reputation for installs, motorsports and performance so I felt good about the decision. Sorry to say they had HORRIBLE mail order customer service for my wheel purchase and two purchases I made afterwards. You might ask, why did I go back to them after the first bad mail-order experience? Well because I'm not a reactionary type guy so I wanted to give them another shot. 2nd time more bad service. 3rd time just as a bad. So I know it wasn't just a fluke, but more of a culture of poor communication and not taking mail order customers very seriously. The issues were their communication on back-orders and drop ships was null (on several occasions, even though the policy on their website says they'll let you know about these events right away). Other issues were that they picked up the wrong wheels for me and also didn't pro-actively communicate that replacing them would cause a shipping delay (I had to write and ask about not relieving any info about shipping at all). Last issue was that their website reflected the wrong product so they drop-shipped the wrong product and now I am stuck trying to liquidate it. So, no wouldn't recommend Evasive for mail order at all. Their other services are probably just fine.

[ZionsWrath]

I want bilsteins eventually but I just spent ~4k on AP brakes, wheels, tires.

another ~1k on raceseng mounts and rear camber arms. Raceseng are on 2 month back order so realistically won't be using them until next year.

So I think full suspension is 2 years off at this point.

Nice car!

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by horrorbiz

Stock size will be faster: http://www.roadandtrack.com/special-...transformation

They kinda screwed up on the bigger tire size. They went to a 235/40-18, which is half an inch larger in diameter than the stock 215/45-17, and of course on a bigger/heavier wheel.
Larger diameter => different overall gearing. Impossible to separate out whether it was the extra width or the change in gearing that hurt lap time. Or maybe the shorter sidewalls. Too many differences vs. stock size.

They should have tested a 245/40-17 instead. Same diameter as the stock size baseline and same sidewall height.

[Ubersuber]

225 section width will work well on stock rims.

TRD only went to 225/40x18 when they released their upgrade package in the UK fit to a 7.5 x 18 wheel.

With stock power you don't need to go overboard with tire or wheel size.

Compound will make more difference than section width. 17 in tires are cheaper so you'll be able to buy more sticky tires....