What size tires?

[Phatcat]

Hey folks,

My 84 T4WD is coming along. I have 15” aluminum Integra wheels on at the moment that I recently painted dark brown. The wheel size is debatable given the easy availability of other options out there, but if I can, I’d just assume get some better rubber on the integra 15’s. I’m questioning what size tires will fit under this car? At the moment it has 195 55 R15 tires on it, and they fit easily. It’d be cool to find something more aggressive a/t in a similar-slightly larger size. Maybe a 205 or 180 70, 180 75, 180 85 will fit? If I were to put the 14” factory wheels on I’d probably buy some Forceum atz’s on, and we may do that eventually. In the meantime, any tires out there we know of in those size ranges outside of the Forceum? It wouldn’t hurt to have a few sets around for this car either. I’ve thought about doing a non studded snow tire on the 14” factory wheels I have, and doing something a/t for the 15” integra wheels.

[Paul]

14" tire sizes have been discussed a lot in the past. Maybe you could take a look at some of those recommendations and use an online tire size calculator to compare 15" possibilities. Seems like many folks deal with full lock rubs as they try to max out the rubber.
The wheels look good... have you considered adding a gold pinstripe? Check out this video:
https://m.roadkillcustoms.com/how-to-pinstripe-wheels/
Harder than it looks, but after I saw it - I had to give it a try.

[dlb]

The size of tire you can run partly depends on the offset of the wheels you are running. For example, I have run slightly larger tires on stock wheels with no problems, but a set of similar sized tires on Honda alloys with a different offset (which I hadn't considered before that) ended up rubbing.

If you're running stock suspension, I think I recall Splatterdog here on the forum running 195/70r14's. I think he had no lift and had no issues with rubbing or anything so you can use that as a reference point. I like to use tire size calculators like this one to find similar overall sizes of tires in different widths and rim sizes:

https://www.1010tires.com/Tools/Tire-Si ... /185-65r15

[Toyotise]

Currently running 195 75 14 on the 1986 SR5
Stock suspension components and ride height on front. Rear with adjustable MA700 air shocks. The front rub barely when suspension bottoms out on bumps.
This combination does give an extra 1.5” ground clearance. Personally these are a little too tall/heavy in my opinion. I would rather run 165-80-13’s at most 185-65-14’s About 1” of additional ground clearance without too much extra wheel/ tire weight.

Need to take into consideration your gear ratio too.
‘83 to 84 had the higher final drive differential ratio of 3.73 to 1. IMO matching taller tires to this gear ratio puts too much stress on the clutch, transmission and driveline components. Drive-ability will suffer some as it will be difficult to get off the line in first gear if your starting on a hill. Later 85-88 final drive ratio of 4.11 to 1 will tolerate taller than stock wheel/ tire combinations better than earlier 3.73 :1 ratio.

Bottom line: The more your rims and tires weigh, and the wider/taller your tires are will put more stress and weight on hub bearings, cv axles, and transmission components.
Keep it closer to stock the longer said components will live.

[Phatcat]

14" tire sizes have been discussed a lot in the past. Maybe you could take a look at some of those recommendations and use an online tire size calculator to compare 15" possibilities. Seems like many folks deal with full lock rubs as they try to max out the rubber.
The wheels look good... have you considered adding a gold pinstripe? Check out this video:
https://m.roadkillcustoms.com/how-to-pinstripe-wheels/
Harder than it looks, but after I saw it - I had to give it a try.

That’s the second request on pinstripe for the wheels. Yes, I’ve been contemplating it, and gold would be the color to do as well. Spot on there.

[Paul]

20231228_211608.jpg

These are junkyard steelies that came with 195-65 14 snow tires. I tried striping with a Mack long liner brush... painted the emblems too. I always liked the look of Nascar steelies.