That's one of the reasons I "only" went up one size on my 280ZXT, from 15" to
16". That and I know that the car will perform better with the 16" than it will
with the 17". Sport Compact Car did a story a year or so ago and made a comment
that followed my personal experience pretty closely. They had a project car or
some such thing and of course to make their advertisers happy they put big tires
and wheels on it, I don't remember exactly what size but it was the new look 18"
or 19," I think. But then for the performance tests they admitted they had to
take those off and put smaller (15" I think) tires and wheels on because, for
all their "performance" look, the car did not perform as well with the big tires
and wheels. I've always been sort of conservative on wheel diameters. I think
15" is a max size for the Roadsters and 510s, and even the early Zs unless they
have been upgraded in the power and suspension areas. I like 16" for the 280ZXs
and some non street Zs. I know lots of folks will disagree, but I've yet to see
a car that got faster or handled better when changed to bigger wheels than that,
unless the change also incorporated an upgrade in tires. Usually all that
happens is the car gets harder to steer, tends to track irregularities in the
road surface more, and costs a lot more to keep in rubber. If the suspension
isn't designed for them, big tires simply push the suspension, and therefore the
car, around IMHO.
datsunmike wrote:
>
> Marc,
>
> It's a good thing you don't run 17 or 18" tires as my hair almost fell out
> when I asked a sales guy how much the tires are for a new Vette. He said
> about 250 per. Yikes!!!!! And those tires don't last all that long as a
> neighbor of mine can attest. His hair already fell out :)
>
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marc Sayer" <marcsayer@home.com>
> To: "Roadster list" <datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 3:41 AM
> Subject: Tirerack.com
>
> > This week my wife had a tire fail on her Volvo. We had been running
> 205-65-14
> > tires on the stock 5.5x14 steel wheels. They were a huge improvement over
> the
> > 185-14s the car first came with but they were still not as high
> performance a
> > tire as either of us would have liked. She likes the look of the stock
> steel
> > wheels with the center caps and trim rings, what can I say, and that
> limits our
> > selection of tires. She also drives pretty hard (not your typical Volvo
> driver)
> > so we really needed some high performance tires. But we live in Oregon
> where it
> > is often raining, so the tires had to work well in the wet too. After a
> bunch of
> > research we decided on the Firestone (yes I know, but there's more to that
> story
> > than meets the eye...) Firehawk SH30. We wanted a 205-60-14 because of the
> rim
> > limitations, and 14" tires in those sizes are not all that common. Most
> places,
> > including America's Tire/Discount Tire had almost no selection, and what
> they
> > had was crap. In that size the Firehawk was by far the best tire for our
> > purposes, but it was hard to find. I called around locally and no one
> could get
> > me the tire for at least 4-5 days and the best prices I got were high 70s
> to low
> > 80s. Tirerack had them in stock at $60 and they delivered them by Fed Ex 2
> day
> > air for $28 for all four tires. I had problems with their website but that
> may
> > have been because of the security settings on my computer. So I called
> then
> > instead and they got me taken care of right away, and the tires arrived at
> my
> > door two days later. Anyway, for my money Tirerack did good and I just
> wanted to
> > pass that along. :-)
> >
> > BTW, I'll let folks know what I think of the tires after a few months and
> some
> > serious Oregon rain, but from all accounts they are supposed to be great
> > high-performance all-weather tires. They are even supposed to do fairly
> well in
> > the snow. The only thing good I can say about shopping for 14" tires is
> they
> > sure are a lot less spendy than the 16" tires I buy for my 280ZXT.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Marc Sayer
> > 82 280ZXT
> > 71 510 2.5 Trans Am vintage racer
--
Marc Sayer
82 280ZXT
71 510 2.5 Trans Am vintage racer
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