I wonder why no one has done this, I've seen some cars that have larger rims in the back and smaller ones in the front. Is there something bad to this because I have not seen any Evos that have done this before. I was thinking that when I get my Evo that I would have some white Volk TE-37s and have them at 17s in the front and 18s in the back so that it will look like it would look like it was at a aggressive stance. Is there something wrong with doing this? Also, I read in a magazine that if you have the either the front or the rear wheels wider than the other that you have better handling, is this true?

 

they do this on either front or rear wheel drive cars. since the evo is awd they tend to match them.

the large wheel usually goes on the drive wheels to have more rubber for the road.

 

Just make sure that you balance the tire width/sidewall to be the same diameter front and rear. Otherwise you may have issues with the limited slip center differential... somebody jump in here and correct me if I am out in left field.

 

I'm no engineer, but 2cool is on to something here. Different sized wheels rotate at different revolutions. This could, over time, cause a failure in the center diff as it tries to handle the unbalanced load. I'd recommend identical wheel and tire sizes all around to be safe. To ensure a long center diff life, I'd recommend tire rotation with every oil change to make sure that the overall tire/wheel rotation doesn't cause the same effect.

 

You should keep your wheels and tires the same size. It's not a questions of IF it will cause damage, it WILL cause damage.

Same goes with on the car wheel balancing, just not a good idea. I know of a VR4 owner that had his cd damaged by a shop using one of those on the car wheel balancers.

 

Another thing to think about is that on the Evo the front tires are under a good deal more stress than the rears due to their having to steer, do a majority of the braking, some acceleration duties and carry 60% of the cars weight. Putting narrower tires on the front will only exasterbate any understeering tendencies as the fronts are already stressed enough. I do not think that this would be a good path to follow even if you could get the diameter/aspect ratio correct. I believe WORKS is selling some forged rims that give the larger rear illusion because they are offset differently front to rear and the rears have a more pronounced lip making them look wider, the rims are pricey though.

 

Ok, so let's just say that I get both sides as 17s and since the front is under more stress, according to joeycoates, than would it be better if the front tires were wider than the rear tires? So the guarantee so far is if I did go with 17s in the front and 18s in the rear, that it would cause harm?

 

Quite a few japanese race teams that run evo's do exactly that...they run the same diameter wheels, but wider tires in front than the rear. Reduces understeer, and allows a little more right foot cornering.

 

You can go 17s front and 18s rear, just maintain the same diameter. Look at the various tire sizing programs on the net to get an idea of what tires would work... like here: http://z31.com/software/tire.pl and http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

 

So I'm guessing the the wider front tires are a given if you want a little better performance. So from what you are saying is that if I want the 17s in the front and 18s in the back that they have to have the same diameter, with the tires on. I thought was a given though, I mean you would want them to have the same amount of rubber, but the front would obviously have to match the back in diameter. So if I did this and as long as the overall diameter is the same, that I won't have any problems, right?