15" or 16", tyre profiles etc. - numerous questions

[Steve M.]

So I currently have the standard 16" turinis on my cup and i'm looking to mainly do track days and have a couple wheel / tyre questions:

1 - I want pro race 1.2's for track use, with toyo r888's. Is the main reason why people go for 15" purely for the cost of tyres? Or does the 15" really handle that much better on track than a 16" version of the same wheel?

2 - My 16" tyre size is the standard 195/45/16 - if I go for 16" pro race 1.2's with the toyo r888's, the r888's only seem to go down to 195/50/16, so the profile is slightly different than the standard - what have other people done as the correct tyre size doesn't seem to be available in the r888's?

Cheers

 

[Sam@NP]

15s for cheaper tyres and a better handling car, not a massive difference admittedly. Why R888s out of interest?

 

[Tony Hunter]

I was going to ask that.

(about 888's)

 

[LewisTaylor]

The main reason people go for 15's on track is the tyres are alot cheaper, apparently the car's handle better on 15's, but i never noticed a difference when i changed. The difference between a 45 and 50 is the profile, 50 profile is good

 

[Steve M.]

why r888's? I want decent track tyres, they seem to be a popular choice, come highly recommended, that's pretty much my reasoning.

Not massively fussed by the price difference of tyres between the 15" and 16" as i'm not going to be doing loads and loads of track days, so i'm not going to be replacing them that often.

As far as the profile goes, surely the 50's on a 16" would throw out the speedo a bit, and as it's a larger diameter than was intended for the car (572mm compared to 598mm), wouldn't it handle differently?

 

[Sam@NP]

Nothing wrong with a nice bit of sidewall, look at all FIA racing cars, all run huge sidewalls.

 

[Tony Hunter]

Huge, black, and stiff.

 

[Cupman29]

When I was running 16's with 195/50/r16 tyres on lowered coilovers it rubbed like mad on the arch liners. Dropped to 15's on 195/50/r15 tyres and all is good!

Tyres are cheaper as said too with better choice.

 

[Sam@NP]

Huge, black, and stiff.

Perfect for when you are going at it hard.

 

[Steve M.]

hmmmm, interesting. So my thinking now is to perhaps get the 16" with r888s (or the A048s if they're considered better) and have them on the car all the time and sell my current turinis with brand new tyres on (they've only done about 80 miles, although the wheels could do with a refurb). I originally wanted to keep the turinis as the car looks better with 16" IMO and I was planning on going down the 15" route, but if that's changed to 16" and I do hardly any miles in the car anyway (mainly for a play now and again and then for track use), I may just keep the one set of wheels.

My head now hurts, too much thinking.

3 choices:

1 - buy 15" 1.2s with track day tyres just for track days, and keep the turinis for all other times
2 - go for 16" 1.2s with the slightly larger tyres and see what happens with the handling etc, and sell my turinis
3 - forget this all and go get some beer


Ultimately I just want to know if getting the 16" pro race 1.2 with 195/50/16 tyres is the way to go or not? If I do that then i'll sell my turinis to help pay for the new set. If I go with the 16" for track days I'm just not sure on the extra wheel diameter - it's an extra inch after all (and I've heard an extra inch can make a difference! ) - plus if I use this with normal road use, how much of a difference will it make to my speedo?

 

[Cupman29]

Is your car lowered?

 

[Steve M.]

When I was running 16's with 195/50/r16 tyres on lowered coilovers it rubbed like mad on the arch liners. Dropped to 15's on 195/50/r15 tyres and all is good!

BINGO! This is what I was a bit worried about. Think that solves it then (as eventually I'll be getting coilovers and I don't want to have to change wheels again when that happens).

So i'm back to square 1, on the lookout for some 15" 1.2's - it's all gone full circle.

 

[Cupman29]

Go for 15's then for track use and 16's if you like for road use.

 

[Steve M.]

Yup, that was the original plan, but used 16s seem to be easier to come by, and if I got 16s then I could sell the turinis and claw some money back. Ah well, the search for 15s continue.....