Board logo

Wheel sizes?????????
andrewturner - 30/10/07 at 04:00 PM

The locost book suggests using theescort 13" wheels.
What is the difference in diamaters of 15" wheels and can any rims be used what is the offset of the rims and how much does this effect the car?

andrew.boyle - 30/10/07 at 04:47 PM

you can acheive the same overall rolling circumfrence with 15 inch wheels instead of 13 inch wheels by using a lower profile tyre

as standard the escort i think used 185/70/13 tyres (correct me if im wrong i know thats what capris used as standard ) and with a 195/55/15 tyre you will have a slightly larger circumfrence 7mm but it wont affect the speedo too much

basically a smaller wheel and tyre will give better acceleration and a larger better top speed

lower profile tyres flex less giving a stiffer and more responsive feel and wide tyres offer more grip in the dry and usually less in the wet !

i would have thought a 195 45 or 195 55 15 to be the best for use on a 7 but this is a subject of much debate !

02GF74 - 30/10/07 at 05:11 PM

quote:
Originally posted by andrewturner
The locost book suggests using theescort 13" wheels.
What is the difference in diamaters of 15" wheels

differencebetween 15 and 13 inch hwheels is 2 inches, hard to believebut that is how it is.

Smaller diameter wheels will be lighter; Tim Westwood is repsonsible for the trend for unnecessarily big wheels, ok if you like the bling look.

A lot of people use 15 inch, a nice compromise but ofcourse you can go up to 17.

rayward - 30/10/07 at 06:05 PM

Depends on if your using Live Axle, or IRS

Live axle you need a 6" wide rim, with an offset of ET19 or less otherwise the wheels catch on the trailing arms.

so you would need a 6x13 ET19, or 6x14 ET19 etc

for IRS you need ET38, so would be 6.5x15 ET38, 7x15 ET38 etc

on live axle cars one reason people usually use 13" wheels because its more difficult to find bigger wheels in ET19 offset

hth

Ray

Coose - 30/10/07 at 06:11 PM

That's not quite right. People with live axle cars use 13" wheels as bigger ones look pants!

Avoneer - 30/10/07 at 07:43 PM

Depends how wide your live axle is as using one of the wider capri ones sets the hub faces further out from the trailing arms.

13" are supposed to be the ultimate in grip and cornering etc. and I can vouch for that having driven cars with 15's and 13's on the track.

A good set of tyres help as well.

Problem is that 13's will look really small on anything other than a book width chassis with normal escort live axle.

Anything else normal width like the MK, MNR etc need 15's to fill the arches as such and look proportionally correct.

Pat...

Avoneer - 30/10/07 at 07:43 PM

Tyre sizes:

DavidM - 30/10/07 at 07:44 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Coose
That's not quite right. People with live axle cars use 13" wheels as bigger ones look pants!


Yeah 13's rock!

David