a buddy of mine has a bunch of japanese car videos. one in particular i saw had a civic challenge track day type thing. all of the bigtime tuners from japan built their best civic ek9 and brought it...jun, spoon, and others you've never heard of that were unbelievable at best. ANYHOW, they all built their cars and then compared lap times on the same short road course. the interesting thing was that several of the tuners used different tire sizes front vs. rear.

obviously a greater contact patch in the front in a civic may be beneficial, so a 205/50/15 in the front vs. a 195/55/15 in the rear ( spoon ex.). but what i noticed was that most everybody ran a slightly narrower tire in the rear regardless of a 15" or 16" wheel( or a wider one in the front, whichever way you want to look at it.).

my question is this, is the only benefit from running two different tire sizes to create a wider tire up front, or are there some hidden cornering bemnefits from a narrower tire in the rear?

 

hondas understeer.

less tire in the back helps balance that.

 

does that mean the back of the car will be easier to rotate during hard cornering? i'm geting ready for new tires and thought i may give it a try if it's a worthwhile thing to do, but don't know anyone that has done it...

 

yes

couldn't hurt, 195 tires are cheaper anyway.

 

couldn't hurt, 195 tires are cheaper anyway.[/QUOTE]

haha, no joke. maybe i just need a rationlization to be thrifty...anyways, i guess we may see...