Andre The Giant

I have 225/50r16 all around as the original specs are. I am wondering other than looks, does having wider tires in the rear bring other benefits, like better handling.

If it does bring better handling what is the widest tire combination I can do by keeping 16 inch original phone dial wheels without modifying anything at all.

James Bailey

On your 7 inch wide phone dials 225 is as wide as you should go. Anything wider will handle worse as the tread is pushed to the side under cornering forces and actually lifts part of it from the road. There are some 8 inch phone dials which came on some 944s but hardly worth the effort. If you want a wider look consider using rear wheel spacers which is what Porsche did....

davek9

What Jim said about 225's on a 7" rim, but wondering what you meant by Original "Phone Dials" on an 1985?
Did you mean the "Man Hole covers", "Trash Can Lids", "Flat dish" wheels ?
As Phone dials were not stock on an '85.

just saying,
Dave

86gtvert

I am currently running aftermarket wheels with 235 40 ZR 17's up front and 265 35 ZR 17's out back. Great off-set on the wheels and an extremly agressive stance IMO. Plenty of rubber on the road. One big point to note: the wide tires in the front do make the car difficult for my wife and daughter to turn the wheels when the car is idle, but while in motion, she handles like she's on rails!

Andre The Giant

Thank you James, I certainly do not want to change the handling in corners. But using spacers doesn't permit me to use wider tires with the rims I have anyway ? I just found that with wider tires in the back enhances the stance and looks even better specially with that big rear bumper which can be compared to a nice butt !

Dave, when I said original, I meant from when the car was purchased by the original owner, he did in fact purchase the M401 option which is the phone dials and not the man hole covers indeed. IMHO I prefer the chrome man hole covers, but as I was told I should keep the phone dials if I want to keep original as much.

I don't want to change to 17 inch tires and rims unless one day I have no choice because of availability.

James Bailey

The spacers spread out the "stance"...fills up the rear wheel wells with the SAME rim and tire. 3/4 of an inch on each side makes a big difference !

OTR18WHEELER

my '85 had oem 7" 7 slots all around, (with the original spacers on the rear) I put on a set of staggered s4 polished 7" slots (7" front, 8" rears) and they fit fine with the spacers. my quarters have not been rolled, and there is no tire rub.

SMTCapeCod

Right, the 8" options should allow a 245 tire width, but finding tires in 245/45R16 is difficult absent some dedicated track tires. The 245 looks a little better in back but still isn't very wide by contemporary standards.

Performance wise, a wider rear tire on an appropriate width wheel will provide a larger contact patch where the rubber meets the road, and better traction for WOT acceleration from a stop via less tire spin...if that is a problem for your car.

Additionally, it could help the rear end adhere in corners...potentially increasing oversteer. Which is generally not a good thing. But you have to be pushing pretty hard to encounter that in the first place, and the condition of the various suspension components and the alignment also bears on oversteer/understeer characteristics.

So, 8" rear, 245, slightly better looks, negligible change..for whatever it costs you to get there. I have the 7 & 8 inch phone dials on the gold Euro below. So you could perhaps just locate two 8" dials with the appropriate backspacing and be good to go.

At the larger diameter wheel sizes, there are a lot of options for installing very wide rear wheels and tires- see the "Who's got the best wheels" thread.

That slippery slope can get a little silly though, when you see the meats some folks put on the back of a car often aspiring to (just) 300rwhp.

Also take care to keep the over all diameter very close if you have ABS.

BTW- too few cars in view with the 16" phone dials nowdays- I encourage you to post up a few pictures!!

Randy V

Just how big are you?

Andre The Giant

Hey Randy, I forgot to answer your question, but here goes, 5'11" 288 lbs. Not as tall and has heavy as the original, but ....!

Andre The Giant

Right now I can get 4 Falken Ziex ZE-912 all season tires for the same price has 2 Fuzion HRI 225/50R16 tires, what to do. I at least want the same performance if not higher that the Fuzion tires I have on now. Plus the Fuzion HRI tires are discontinued and that makes my life difficult. I have used the search engine and did not find anything. I do don't want to change rims, I like my 16 inch phone dials.

Can anyone advise if these Falken ziex ze-912 are any good on wet and dry pavement compared to the Fuzion tires I have. I want to stay comparaby at the same quality at least not downgrade.

Thank you in advance.