When one goes, say stock 15" wheels, to 16" or 17" wheels, is there any driving/performance gain from going larger, or is it all in the interest of looks? I'm thinking I'd like to get a set of American Racing Torq-Thrust IIs to replace the 15"ers I got on there now, but I don't if I'd rather have 16s or 17s.

 

well, you probably want to keep your overall wheel/tire height the same that way your speedo wont be off.

In this case, the bigger diameter the rim, the less profile on the tire, and the worse ride its going to be. usually with low profile tires, you have to keep the air pressure the same all of the time.

also, the smaller the diameter the rim, the bigger the profile on the tire, therfore resulting in a smoother ride.

(Not that thirdgen's have a good ride in the first place)

but a good ride when comparing to other rims on other thirdgens

but to answer your question, IMO there isnt a real gain in performace, but IMO i think that any 17" rims look sweet on thirdgens.

16" seem too small, while 18" seem too big

 

By the time I put new wheels on my car, I'll probably have already put a 115 or 145 MPH speedo in there, so hopefully the speedo problem you mentioned would be fine (?)

Heh, I don't think I'll ever be expecting a super-smooth ride from my car (although hopefully some SFCs in the near future will help). I think the largest I'd go is 17", but I think to really decide what I wanted, I'd have to see 3rd gens with 16s and 17s in person.

 

You could definitely see performance gains by going larger. For example, going from a 15x7 wheel up to a 17x9.5 wheel, you could get much wider tires on, resulting in better handling. Though you give up some of your ride, you get better looks at the same time. Also, if you ever wanted to go with bigger brakes, a larger diameter wheel will give you increased caliper clearance.

 

I believe your speedo will still be screwed up, don't know how to fix it.

 

for me it was looks and performance.

i had to have at least a 17" to fit the brakes and very few 17's would fit them. that coupled with the rim i wanted they just look better 18". the larger sizes gives more definition to the wheel and a deeper dish which was what i wanted.

it's all about preference. cost can also be an option.

tires for my 16" in my michelin pilots were 750.

the same tires for my 18's would have ran me 2200 had i been dumb enough to pay it.

 

The width of the rim has more performance characteristics than the diameter of the wheel. You would probably notice more of a difference going from a 15 X 7 to a 16 X 9 than a 15 X 7 to a 17 X 8. In my opinion, 17" wheels are the perfect diameter of wheels and any rim 8" or wider is good enough.

 

not always true....

had i used a 17" vette rim instead of the 18 i would have had to alter my steering components along with going smaller in brake size and had issues with tire rubbing. i also would have had to go with a 40 series tire instead of the 35 i have now which would have made my tire height overall a little shorter throwing things off.

i agree that 17" is the better basic wheel. however it also depends on the situation for me i needed the room and i like the styling of the same wheel in a larger diameter better so it works out great both ways.

 

once you get new rims with new tires, give me the size of the new size tire, and also give me the size of the tire that your car came with, and i can tell you which speedo gears you will nedd to get so your speedo is correct. This is only if you decide to stay with your current speedo. I am not sure if it will change at all if you put a new speedo in it or not.

 

Alrught, cool thanks. Right now I'm running P215/65P15s, they're winter tires. This spring I'm gonna be getting Goodyear Eagle HP 215/65HR15s. But I won't be getting these wheels for a while, possibly the end of this summer if not the summer after that. Thanks for your help, you've cleared up some confusion, and I think I'll end up going with 17"ers...

 

Ok i did some calculating and here is what i cam up with...

Your current rims are 15" with 215/65/15 tires

if you get say...17"x9.5" rims, you can go with 255/45/17 tires

this will give you the same overall height of the rim/tire of 26"

if you keep your factory speedo, and its correct, it will be slow by 0.1 MPH, so when it reads 60 MPH you be actually going 60.1 MPH

if you have any questions you can post them here or PM me.

-Josh

 

Hey thanks for your help. I think once I go for this, 0.1 MPH won't bother me too much! I'll definately still be around this board when it happens, so this'll be the first place I come to with questions (it always is anyways!).

One last question though, the numbers in the tires codes, what do they mean? I can tell the last digit is diameter, but what of the others?

 

If you have a tire size say...P255/45/R17...you can see that the last number is the rim diameter. The 'P' means a passenger car and the 'R' means radial tire. The first number is the width of the tire in millimeters (mm), and the 2nd number is the sidewall size as a percentage of the wheel width. So in this case, since the width is 255 mm or 10", the size of the sidewall (from the rim to the edge of the tire) is 255*(.45)=114.75mm or 4.5".

Keep in mind that you can put wider tires on a narrower rim. In this case, 10" wide tires on a 9" wode rim.