buying rims to fit tires that i already have. 10 inch wide seems a little big, but 8 inch seems a little small. is either ok?

 

A 225 is pretty skinny. You can fit them on an 8", but it looks like poo. A 7" will fit it better. Why don't you buy the rims you want and run those tires til you can afford other tires?

 

Well, you didn't say if it was a 15" tire or a 16" tire, so I just assumed 15" in the search on Tirerack.

The recommended wheel sizes show 6" - 8", although I personally recommend a 8" wheel. Even though on a 15" tire, the sidewall would be tall enough to flex out & fit.

 

how in the world did you find that on the tire rack web site? i looked for a hour and couldnt find any thing. they are 15 in. tires i got them on a 10 in. wheel now but it looks like the wheel is too wide. im going to run auto cross (hill climbs) and dont want them to peel off the rim in a hard corner.

 

When you look at a specific sized tire, 225/50R15, in your case..... http://www.tirerack.com/tires/SearchTires.jsp.....takes you to a list of tires in that size.

Choose 'SPECS' on a tire choice. For example, the first tire that comes up n that size is a Hankook. Clicking on 'SPECS' takes you to http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.j...e1=yes&place=0

 

thanks stephen... that helps me a lot

 

Do you want this for the front or the back?

 

front and back....im running the same tire all the way around. after stephen's help ive decided to run 8 in. rims for now

 

Hmmm....Not sure how I feel about my "help" now.

I'm running 9"s and wouldn't go down to 8". Especially not since increasing from a 16" to a 17", yet not widening from 8" to 9"?

 

225/50s are more for a 7 inch wheel, and more of a winter tire size. If you have a 406, you're going to want a wider tire. A standard size is 245/50/16.

 

I'm confused as to why you'd want to but a new set of 15s for super skinny tires when you have a nose heavy car with 406 in it....

 

Yes, a 225/50 fits nicely on a 7" wide wheel. On 8", most tires the sidewall is no longer even vertical.
I agree with the above... why only a 225?

 

i already have the tires. they are kumho v710 racing slick, and since i dont trailer the car i have to drive to the hill climbs, so the tires have to be on an extra set of rims. last year i borrowed a set from a good freind (his t/a sat on jack stands). there was a 15 sec differance bettween running the street tire and the slicks on a 2 mile course. how much wider of a tire can i put up front and still turn hard? at 200.00 each i dont want to buy somthing that should or might work, which is why i bought the kumhos.

 

I've seen people with 315s on all four corners running road races... so you can go a good deal wider and still turn hard.

 

If you're using an extra set of tires and wheels for a road course/hill climb/autocross, you'd be better of selling the tires you have now, and picking up something like a kumho v710 in 245/45R16, or 275/40R17. With either a 16x8 inch wheel(very common factory thirdgen size), or a 17x9 inch wheel.

Here would be another nice option to run a 16 inch wheel, BFGoodrich g-Force R1 in 245/45/16 on a 16 inch wheel.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....e1=yes&place=6


With 315s on the front, you would need fender flares. You'll also need some modifications on the back to fit 315s(roll the fender, and would have to pay attention to offsets).

 

245's are the factory size on many thirdgens. You can run a 255 ok, but depending on the tread depth (no tread? ) or the overall diameter, they may rub the plastic fender liners up front at full lock. Hope you're not full lock while racing. You may be able to get up to 275 in the front without contact issues, I know a few who have done that but with sticky tires I'm not sure you would need all that much rubber.

 

I think the OP is talking about his competition tires only here, and it's for auto-X or open tracking. That means that you forget about what looks good to you when you look with your "best street appearance" eyes. What works best for the competition at hand is all that matters. Here, wider wheels give you sharper response that you can't get otherwise.

Once you become a true "cornering function first" kind of guy, a 225-width tire looks wrong on anything LESS than 8". To me, a 7" wide rim is not the least bit too wide for the 205/50's I have on #85EP (Mazda 626). There is still too much lateral tread movement relative to the wheels as the tires distort sideways in a hard corner.

For cornering in general an auto-X in particular (unless the rules limit you) you usually want wheel widths up around the high end of the "recommended rim width" range, or even slightly above that width. Remember, you shouldn't be needing protection against things like curb rash during competition (but if you do, you've got bigger things to worry about than fixing or replacing a couple of scarred wheels).

I would not hesitate to run 225/50's on 15 x 8.5" wheels - that's what my 225/60's on the Malibu are mounted on (long story), and 9" seems do-able based on some other tire/wheel combinations I've lived with on a daily basis. But I don't think I'd try for 10, though.

FWIW, 225/50-15 seems a little marginal for this size car in terms of load capacity, though the short durations of your competition sort of cover for you a bit.


Norm

 

I'm running 225/50/15's in front and 225/60/15's on the back with factory 15x7 rims and I think that they look allright. For what they are they perform perty good too.

 

Sure, you can get pretty good performance from those tire:wheel combinations. There's even some reason to believe that the straight line performance might be a tiny bit better with those tire sizes on 7's rather than on 8's. But when it comes to hard cornering, putting those sizes on 7's is definitely leaving something on the table. Enough difference to feel, if that matters any.

I probably can't emphasize too much - appearance has its place, but has to be a lesser consideration than performance if performance is what one really wants.


Norm

 

norm is right on with where my head is at, i really dont care too much about how the tires look on the car as long as they make me faster im liking it...