E30 tire question, and a wheel question

Went to an autocross yesterday and had a hell of a good time. Unfortunately (actually, fortunately), my tires did not have such a good time. Its time for some new ones. We have the stock 14 inch BBS basketweaves.

My dad is trying to tell me they don't make the Azeni's in the right size. He says that we are 195-65-14. Correct me if I'm wrong, but will the 195-60-14's fit on the wheel/car just as good?

And, also, did the 1991 318ic come with 15 inch wheels as an option? If it won't take us out of stock, we might be interested in getting new wheels altogether.

Thanks, Mike

mtn wrote: Went to an autocross yesterday and had a hell of a good time. Unfortunately (actually, fortunately), my tires did not have such a good time. Its time for some new ones. We have the stock 14 inch BBS basketweaves. My dad is trying to tell me they don't make the Azeni's in the right size. He says that we are 195-65-14. Correct me if I'm wrong, but will the 195-60-14's fit on the wheel/car just as good? And, also, did the 1991 318ic come with 15 inch wheels as an option? If it won't take us out of stock, we might be interested in getting new wheels altogether. Thanks, Mike

The 325iX came with 4 lug 15" basketweaves. I'm not sure there is a flood of them to be found but bimmerworld sells nice, light Racing Dynamics wheels in 15" that are reasonably cheap.

walterj wrote: The 325iX came with 4 lug 15" basketweaves. I'm not sure there is a flood of them to be found but bimmerworld sells nice, light Racing Dynamics wheels in 15" that are reasonably cheap.

Would they take me out of stock class in autocross?

The "is" came with 15" weaves. If it's classed the same as your car...there ya go. They are actually surprisingly light, but also very prone to bending (typical Ronal wheel). For Spec E30, I run the stock bottlecap junkers with 205/55-14 Toyo RA-1's which, to me, is actually a pretty good autocross tire too.

ddavidv wrote: The "is" came with 15" weaves. If it's classed the same as your car...there ya go. They are actually surprisingly light, but also very prone to bending (typical Ronal wheel). For Spec E30, I run the stock bottlecap junkers with 205/55-14 Toyo RA-1's which, to me, is actually a pretty good autocross tire too.

I'm not sure... Everything that I've been told is that the car is the same thing as the "is", but its a convertible, which brings makes it H-Stock.

Probably just going to go with new tires.

still use the 205/55r14s

The 195/60/14 will fit. It'll be a tad shorter, which will make for slightly lower effective gearing and will make your speedometer read slightly high.

The difference in revolutions per mile will only be something like 30 revs out of roughly 900 at that size difference, so the error will be something like 3.3%

Mr. Brown has a good point. You could get something like an RA1 or NT01 in 205/55/14 and have a tire that will wear almost as well on the street as the RT615 and be slightly more competitive.

You could also go with the Victoracer in that size, which is probably a better AX tire, but I don't know how long they'd last on the street.

My brother ran low pro 13s on his BMW 2002, can you do that here?

Dan

Stock E30 size for basketweave E30s is 195/65/14.

No RWD non M E30 came from the factory with 15" wheels

The offset of the iX wheels is much too high, it is like a FWD offset of +40 instead of the +25 that the RWD likes.

195/60/14s fit fine as said and will just make your speedo read high and give you lower effective gearing.

There were a variety of 15" BMW Accessory wheels as well, but none of them left the factory that way, so none of them work for stock class AutoX.

I'd agree with the suggestions to slap some R compounds on the stock 14s and pick up some 15-17" wheels for street. There are tons of affordable choices, just make sure it has a center bore of 57.1 (or appropriate hub rings) and an offset around +25.

Sonic has it correct for US cars for sure; I've heard that you could get an iS in europe with 15" rims from the factory but I don't have proof of that, and it may not apply to the rules for your class anyway.

Stuart is right, in Europe you could get 15" weaves, but we only got 14's. :-( Shame, because a 15x7 with a 205/55/15 is a great size for these cars.

914Driver wrote: My brother ran low pro 13s on his BMW 2002, can you do that here? Dan

wont clear the tie rod ends.

Offset is different between iX and other E30s. No switchy.

15" is awesome on E30s. I did 15x7 Momo 1000s on mine with 205/50-15 and loved it. The sidewalls were forgiving enough to absorb my amateur driving style. I borrowed a set of 16s and I lost time, but more experienced drivers tend to be able to pick up a little time with 16s if they can anticipate the skittish nature in the bumps.