18's or 16's?
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Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 296
18's or 16's?
Hi guys, I'm going to the track in 2 days and was wondering if i should keep my 18's on or my 16's. But before, i have to say that my 18' have summer tires with 80% tire left and my 16' are winter tires (not all-seasons) with 50% tire left. I'm leaning toward the 18's but wonder how much 10th of seconds i might be losing. My aim is 13.9 in the 1/4 mile. Thanks
Always go with more sidewall for drag. Cheap, tall all-season tires on 15" rims will work better than pretty much any other street tire setup. You need a lot of soft sidewall. I was able to pull a bunch of low 2.0 60's on stock sawblades and tires at 22-23 psi. I even had giant zip ties on my front springs as "travel limiters". Sounds ulta-getho but it worked for me.
Low-profile tire generally have too hard sidewalls for drag. Plus the 18's are slowing you down. Somebody did the test between 15" sawblades and lightweight 17 wheels. The Sawblades were consistantly .15 and 1+ mph faster even though they were heavier. Bigger wheels have the weight too much toward to outer edge, which is harder to get moving.
We already have FWD cars with mostly open diffs which is far from ideal for traction. IMO it's not a good idea to handicap yourself with big rims and hard tires on top of that. Good luck.
Low-profile tire generally have too hard sidewalls for drag. Plus the 18's are slowing you down. Somebody did the test between 15" sawblades and lightweight 17 wheels. The Sawblades were consistantly .15 and 1+ mph faster even though they were heavier. Bigger wheels have the weight too much toward to outer edge, which is harder to get moving.
We already have FWD cars with mostly open diffs which is far from ideal for traction. IMO it's not a good idea to handicap yourself with big rims and hard tires on top of that. Good luck.
