Which tyre size and wheel to choose?

[saxophonias]

13 or even 14inch stock wheels are inconvenient when you want to choose competition tyre. There are issues with traction as well due to size and width. On the other hand when you go too big you lose in speed and traction in wet. So what to choose?

[Dodo Bizar]

Well my favourite is the 15 inch rim. For 15 inchers you can get descent performance tyres with stiff enough walls. Unfortunatly most of these tyres are also available in 16 inch, but can cost up to twice as much since the 16 inch is a rare one. Some 17 inch tyres are even cheaper than 16 inch, but you will notice real degrade in performance... so for me 15 inch it is.

Than I recently ask myself the following question: which breadth to chose? On my EJ1 chassis I got 6.5J but on the EJ9 I got 7J. Both same tyres and I tried to give them a similar suspension setup. Still the EJ9 is far more responsive with sideways corrections. I believe the 7J sets the walls stiffer compared to 6.5J. Something with the geometry of rim-wall-contact surface.

So for the EJ1 I also got a set of 7J rims now and see what it does. Actually the EJ1 had until this week 5.5J rear rims, terrible oversteering feeling it gave me, didn't dare to push it to the limit. Right now its 6.5J again but needs a good shakedown still. But the difference between 5.5 and 6.5J might give me an indication what 7J will do for me...

[saxophonias]

I am almost sure that if you had the chance to try a lightweight 14inch rim with sticky tyres you would love them!! Of course as you mentioned, there are only a few performance tyres on the 185-60-14 scale. This is one of the main reasons i moved to 185-55-14 size. Stiffer sidewalls, more brands available, shorter (3%) ratios. Still there is a catch. 185-55-14 are significant more expensive.
If you don't really care about treadware and you are careful with aquaplaning then you could choose Toyo 888 which are available on 185-60-14 size. There some others as well.
Still if you stick to 14 inch wheels i strongly suggest 185-55-14 size!

[mark_ej9]

At the moment I have a 16' rota auto x wheel wrapped in 205/45/16 toyo proxie cant complain. They do the job for me

[demolik]

jdm classic is 195x55-15 or some times 195x50-15 (itr, ek4, ek9...)

[Power of Vtec]

at the monent, 15x7 rims with 195/50 rubber

[saxophonias]

wide and neat!
Tomorrow i'll be having some 15x7 wheels ET 35. That is the biggest our cars can accept. Very curious to see how it handles.

[Dodo Bizar]

That's what my BBS's are... I actually prefer the ET35 for handling over ET40, which seems a bit sharper... but could be in my mind as well. And I am comparing a little bit apples with pears... I drove the same tire on a 6.5 wide ET40 rim and a different tire on a 7J ET40 rim. So one is different in J, the other in tire. But still it feels sharper to have ET35. And never had steering torque problems, over 250.000km on those BBS rims.

[mynameisowen]

My front tyres are bald and I want get some good replacements but I don't know anything about tyre brands. What should I go for? What size? At the moment I have 13" wheels which I really want to upgrade to 14 or 15 for stiffer sidewalls. I also want to keep rolling radius correct (as close as possible) What should I go with?

[saxophonias]

195/50/15. Maybe get some ek4 wheels that you can find for cheap.
If you pay for new I would go for 15x7 et 35