Wheels/tires for an s13

[mechanicalmoron]

I know there's a wheels section, but this relates specifically to this car, if this is wrong feel free to move me.

It's about time for new tires (or past time, they're bald) on my SE hatch. It's got it's aluminium wheels still, and I am NOT interested in making it LOOK good (or look like anything), or spending a lot of money for wheels that will still be "replica" or whatever. If I could get a set of quality name-brand aluminium wheels that did what I wanted for like five hundred bucks, then I'd be interested, but I don't know if that exists. (I don't REALLY even know where to shop for wheels online, other than places that ask for your vehicle and NOT the specs you want, which is very frustrating for me)

What I am interested in is putting more rubber on the ground, and/or reducing the sidewall height.

Is there any safety problem with putting lower profile tires on the stock wheels, and would anyone have any suggestions for this? (or would it make the chassis ungodly low? it's already lowered a little bit)

As for going wider, is there any sort of cost-effective way to do that with normal steel wheels? Would I lose net performance, even considering I don't want a whole lot more diameter?

Any help is appreciated. In a nutshell, I want more rubber on the ground, and less sidewall, for a reasonable price. I don't care about looks at all, have no interest in 17" wheels, etc.

[simmode1]

I don't think there will be many mechanical problem with doing this except your rolling diameter will be smaller and therefore throw off your speedometer.

I think your bigger problem will be finding wide rubber that fits our 15's. I think 225/50/15 is probably the widest, lowest profile tire I've seen unless your willing to consider Hoosiers. The 15's are 15x7, right? I think 235 is probably the widest you can safely fit on there anyways.

There may be other tire size options, but I don't have time to look for them at the moment. I think, basically, what you're looking for is a NA Miata setup for a s13...

[Ilya240sx]

I am running Michelin Hydroedge 215/65/ 15 on my SE wheels on my s13 and it bulges quite a bit, was very close to my shocks before I put coilovers on, and I would not go wider. I drive my car hard sometimes and my tires show since they bulge so much. The Hydroedge is by far the best tire I have driven on.

[mechanicalmoron]

Well I figured out the first bit of it.... realized it's current tires are 185/65, so it would already be a great improvement to go to the stock 205/60.

Got any pictures of the 215s? Once you got coilovers there's plenty of clearance? I really wanted lower profile, because my car bounces quite a bit, but not from the shocks at all, it's all in the tire.

[Ilya240sx]

oregon-vert-intro-t507767.html

Plenty or room and space! Scroll to the bottom to see the lowered vert

[krash]

Yea I wouldn't really mess with huge tires on stock wheels. You're going to have one hell of a sidewall, plus you're pushing the limits of the wheel just to fit a 235 (maybe.)

Contrary to popular belief, XXRs are good because of this. They're cheap wheels that you can get in 17x8 and 17x9 with proper offsets. a 17" rim will allow you to use a smaller sidewall, and even with an 8" wide wheel you have much more room than stock. a 235/45 will be square on a 17x8, you can fit 245s easily. You said you want a smaller sidewall but dont want 17s which kind of doesn't make sense to me, but hopefully you figure it out. Thats my 1/50th of a dollar.

[mechanicalmoron]

Yea I wouldn't really mess with huge tires on stock wheels. You're going to have one hell of a sidewall, plus you're pushing the limits of the wheel just to fit a 235 (maybe.)

Contrary to popular belief, XXRs are good because of this. They're cheap wheels that you can get in 17x8 and 17x9 with proper offsets. a 17" rim will allow you to use a smaller sidewall, and even with an 8" wide wheel you have much more room than stock. a 235/45 will be square on a 17x8, you can fit 245s easily. You said you want a smaller sidewall but dont want 17s which kind of doesn't make sense to me, but hopefully you figure it out. Thats my 1/50th of a dollar.

Well I wouldn't mind a small sidewall on stock wheels, simply because I don't care how it looks compared to how it works, and that would be less rotating mass, and that mass would be closer to the hub. It would still take out sidewall flex, it would just effectively reduce the finial drive a little bit.

But it looks like for the time being, I'm hopefully buying a set of teardrops with (hopefully) decent tires on them. Then I can keep my best tire as a full size spare, and have this whole set to mess around with, and two sets of alloy wheels to swap things back and fourth however I need. Obviously I'd prefer bigger, but given the option of a full set of alloy wheels with tires for less than the price of just tires, I'm taking that.

In fact, I think the set I'm looking at has 205/55's on it, so I'm still going wider and lower, though just a bit.

[krash]

Keep in mind, a whatever set of 17x8 XXRs with tires is going to weigh pretty much the same as stock. The weight being distributed 2 inches past the stock diameter isn't going to hurt compared to all the gains you're going to get.

If you have to stay with stock wheels, just get GOOD tires. They don't have to be huge. I love Kumho Ecsta Supras, but I don't competitively race. Find a good tire thats maybe a little wider than stock and call it a day.