Anyone know what the maximum diameter tire you can run on a lowered EF is?

The stock tire height is about 22.67" diameter (that's calculated from a 195/50R15)

What I'm wondering is... What is the tallest tire you can fit on an EF without any problems (i.e. contacting the inner fender or plastic wheel well liner) ?

Surely someone here ran some 18's in their ricer days... (or maybe you are still using them now?) or even 17's.... What size tire did you run?

Any problems vertically in the wheel well? I'm not concerned about going too wide and hitting the fender lips.. as the snow tires are going to be 185's (perhaps 185/75R14 if they fit)

I'd like to take my 15" alloys off for the winter time and use an extremely tall snow-only tire to regain ground clearance for the snow....

With some nice tall tires for winter, I can avoid having to raise my car back up and mess with the coil overs.. They are dialed in perfect right now and I don't want to screw with them... Plus the hassle of retightening all the bushings at the new ride height after raising it up then doing it all over again after lowering it again later...

 

I've been using a 195-60-15 (~24.21" O.D.) Kumho KH-11 partially for the taller gearing to cruise to and from track events. Also for the taller sidewall to soften up the ride some during those drives. BTW, that tire was like $36 each @ TireRack...

I'm getting a little fender lip rubbing on dips (bad roads in CA) and some parking lot entrances since the car is set up for 205-50-15. Also I run spacers in the front due to big brakes. If it was a typical ED/EF offset (no spacer) this rubbing probably would be less or non-existant. The inner liners have a little rub, I think this is from those typical parking lot entrances when you have the wheel semi-cranked and hit the incline. Lastly there is a wierd bump in the driver side wheel-well unibody stamping, towards the rear. This doesn't exist on the passenger side, it protrudes towards the tire so there is even less space. The underbody coat is slightly worn away from tire rub to the paint. After all this I think a 185-60-15 may have been better or to raise the car...

Your proposed 185/75R14 is like ~24.93" O.D. So I think you're going to have a lot of upper fender linner wear. Depends on how soft your suspension is and how much travel occurs and how low you are to begin with.

Long story short, stay on the side of high 23" O.D., low 24" O.D. Mid 24's on up will be a pain.

 

widen your fenders and see how much you can cram up under them I'm all for the Baha CRX

 

hmm so...

185/65R14 (23.46)...EG/DC size... would be the safe choice... it should work fine, no probs....?

185/70R14 (24.2) will probably rub the fender liner?

as for susp...Im running Tein SS...DA knuckles.....about 1 finger gap in front...

btw thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NikoZai &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">widen your fenders and see how much you can cram up under them I'm all for the Baha CRX</TD></TR></TABLE>

since it has a clutch pack LSD Y1 trans...i was kind of tempted to jack the car up using the coil overs .. and put some big tall red neck size tires in there to turn it into a "Baja Bug" style mode for winter time only... so it could be the little honda hatch snow dominator ... Jekyl & Hyde style... slammed on some sticky tires in the summer and a little jacked up on some knobbies for the snow season...

hahaha yes i know that might sound kind of retarded to most of you but thats why its cool .. i mean... the idea of a vw beetle turned into a baja monster must have sounded kind of retarded at first until ppl saw how much *** they kicked off roading

anyways...ive kinda backed off to plan B...the simplified / compromised version of that insanity...simply "how tall a tire can i go with, w/o messing with the suspension settings or messing up the wheelwell liners?"

&lt;ramble&gt;
hahaha the idea of a devoted baja EF is so funny that it makes me want to buy a hatch and set it up for the winter time ONLY... get a KAAZ .. jack it up a little bit with some vision control arms to put some negative camber back to offset the raising..and flare it out and put some tall *** winter-only tires and off-road lighting on it :-) then i could play big bad red neck for 3 months of the year
&lt;/ramble&gt;

no i swear im not a redneck just an air cooled VW guy as well so i appreciate the versatility

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by alexdog69 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">hmm so...

185/65R14 (23.46)...EG/DC size... would be the safe choice... it should work fine, no probs....?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah that should be plenty safe.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by alexdog69 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
185/70R14 (24.2) will probably rub the fender liner?

as for susp...Im running Tein SS...DA knuckles.....about 1 finger gap in front...

btw thanks</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's basically my O.D. With it I run about the same gap, maybe 1 and a half fingers. I am running 195, so that's 5mm more on the outside. Plus I have a 15mm spacer and a thicker than stock brake disk hat. So this is what I was reffering to about the offset. You probably won't have a problem if you have a "normal" offset. I'm pushing the outer edge closer to the fender lip.

I'd then only be concerned if you encounter a bump/dip/road irregularity that causes your wheel to travel high enough that it rubs up higher. Not sure of Tein SS spring rates, I'm running 448 lb-in in the front so that helps a little.


Modified by XrcR6 at 11:12 PM 10/27/2004

 

Freakin van tires over here.

185-65-15 on the stock suspension. It'll bottom out when I hit a deep enough dip.