Same tire, same track width, how does wheel width effect grip?
For instance, a 275width tire has a recommended wheel width from 9.0" - 11.0".
Grip, feel, camber needed, ride quality, something else?
Same tire, same track width, how does wheel width effect grip?
For instance, a 275width tire has a recommended wheel width from 9.0" - 11.0".
Grip, feel, camber needed, ride quality, something else?
A wider wheel will give you more contact patch which should correlate to more grip. I see more and more people putting 315's on 12" wheel now instead of 11's wheels which has been common.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=200
I think GRM had an article on this many years ago from a tire test which concluded a slightly stretched tire was more responsive.
I recall Terry from Vorshlag doing some A/B testing on this topic years ago but I can't find the post he did. He's a huge propenent of using a wider wheel to get full tire width.
Just want to point out that recommended rim width is an industry standard based on nominal tire size only, not an actual recommendation for that specific tire. Especially in the high performance tire sector it's pretty common for tires to be their happiest on wheels even wider than the upper end of the recommended range.
This test should help:
Summer Tire Test: BFG Rival vs Bridgestone RE-71R vs. Dunlop Direzza ZIII
Well this vid pretty much answers most of my original questions. Seems that wider wheels/more tire stretch is generally faster and has a more direct feel, at least in this test.
No big surprises there, but I hope they distribute their test results to their bosses over at Discount Tire, who refuse to mount 225s on 9" wheels...
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