Orjan

Is it possible to put a 205/50-16(or 205/55-16) tire on a 9" wide rim?
The tire is a Toyo R1R, and the only reason for trying to do this - is because we've got a limitation on tire width in our racing series.
I have a set of magnesium rims though, and the rear set is 9" wide.

Anyone ever tried this?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Ørjan Sandland

ron mcatee

The tire is too narrow for that rim width. I think a 245 or 255 will fit better.
205's on 6 & 7 inch rims
215/225/245's on 7 & 8 inch rims
245/255 on 9 inch rims.

Someone with more knowlede can chime in if you want.

Orjan

Appreciate the response, but the question isn't what fits the rim. I am limited to 205 tires, so anything else is out of the question. We are running 205's on 8 inch rims with no problems, but putting them on 9 inch rims will probably not work.
People on here have tried the impossible before though, so I thought I'd ask anyway

purple_rado

its definitely doable. the specs for that size are rated for a 7-8 inch wide wheel, the 205 on a 9 will have a slight stretch, but nothing too crazy. but, what i am not sure of is if you'll lose any performance of the car/tire or both with the slightly pulled tire on there.
-vic

Jason Judd

I remember Michelin put out a point sheet once...

They said the goal is to get a tire on the widest rim possible that it will fit on...

As opposed to getting the widest tire on a given rim.

So, if you can get a 205 on a 9" rim, then more power to ya'



Jason

ZX3tuning

ummm, i'm all for stretching a tire over a rim however i do it for looks and keep it minimal.
the max rim width for a T1R 205/50/16 is 7.5". now a 205/50 over a 7.5" rim will show a slight stretch.
i do not suggest running more than .5" over max spec if you have any ideas of retaining performance and safety on any serious level.
you are talking about putting a 205/50/16 on a 16x9?
that's an extra 1.5" of stretch!? Your sidewalls, if you could actually get the bead to seat and hold air, would not be far off of being FLAT.

you cannot run anything smaller than a 215/40 on a 9" rim and do it safely and with maintaining some level of performance.

I would suggest either finding a new set of rims to run in that class, or change class you so can run those rims with the propper.

i really do not suggest doing this, it's damn near impossible, dangerous and just a bad idea.
i would hate to see you damage one of those wheels or destroy a couple of tires...

here is a 205/40/16 over a 16x9" wheel on a VW Corrado:

a 205/40/16 has a max width spec of 8" so on a 9" wheel it has 1" of stretch... that's a lot!

earlyapex

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Play it safe and use an appropriately sized wheel for your tire. A tire failure could destroy your car and/or your competitors and could get someone hurt.

brad@tirerack.com

205 on a 9" wheel?

No way.

You can't put a 205 on anything larger than 7.5" wide safetly. An inch and a half over recommended is putting yourself and others at peril. Don't do it.

Mike1982

Why is it I always hear to get a smaller tire on a larger wheel?? I mean not like this where streching an inch passed but like on a 16x8 wheel stock of 225/50 tire (Fuch) and not 245/45 tire??

ZX3tuning

usually the idea behind stretching a tire is to get the widest rim into the fender and the smallest tire to minimize the chances of rubbing.
putting a wider tire on a narrower rim is just as bad as stretching when it comes to performance. FWIW, wider tires on narrower rims is called "pinching".
one reason why you might not hear about this as much is there is littler performance gain and most of the time you will have to battle with fender clearence issues with ths route. Not everyone has a fender roller nor are close to a shop with one and skilled enough with said roller to propperly work the fenders of your Porsche with out damage...
well that and Pinched tires look pretty lame imho.
Boxed tires(squared sidewalls) or running the right tire on the right rim, offer the best performance no matter what. going higher or lower width tire on the same rim will reduce the performance of the tire. besides, most people would opt for going with a wider rim to put a wider tire on over just trying to stuff the widest tire possible onto the rim they already have.... it looks and works better.

brad@tirerack.com

Every tire has a recommended rim width it's designed to work safetly within. You can find these on our websight under the "specs" link for each tire and size. Most tires, unless very low profile, have about a two inch range. To try and got that far beyond the range is silly - and unsafe.

Dave in Chicago

This should be the "sticky post" for every "will this tire fit on this rim" question.

Some expensive engineering went into determining which rim widths to use for any given tire/model/manufacturer. They differ, hence the need to check the specific data for that tire.

Really, don't compromise your safety on this one...

ZX3tuning

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
while i agree, you also have to remember that those engineers also added in a margin of safety for the company they work for. you can easly put a tire .5" too small on a wider rim without serious safety issues and even track it but doing so will also void your warrenty on said tire and not offer the optimum level of performance.

the manufacturer's have to be held accountable to some level so what they post as the limits are done so to mimize the "idiot-margin" of somebody who doesn't know any better trying to stuff a 205/50 on a 9" rim. No offence to the original poster, just an example.

I'm pretty sure Damon will say that you should not put a tire on anything but what the manufacturer recommends, and he has to. to suggest otherwise would put him in the crosshairs for any lawsuits that could come from damage/injury/death from doing otherwise.
Myself on the other hand, am not subject to the US "i'm a retard and it was my mistake/fault, but i'll sue you anyways!" mentality/legal system so i can get away with saying that "while it's not suggested or entirely safe, it is possble to stretch a tire .5" safely and 1" for show only."

take it with a grain of salt.
you will either agree or disagree but atleast you have all the information now to make an INFORMED choice on your own.

purple_rado

that picture of the 205 on the 9 inch wide corrado setup makes my stomach cringe. as i said above, it is possible to squeeze the tire on there, but i definitely neglected to say i would never try it. that car is from one of my corrado forums and all the rage on the vw scene is in fitting wider than normal wheel set ups on our cars. the only problem is b/c the wheel wells are so small it limits the amount of tire that can be run on say a 9 inch wide wheel w/o the chance of rubbing issues. the big problem is it looks like crap and i'd hate to be in the car when it breaks the seal with the rim of the wheel.

a 205 tire is maxed out on an 8inch wide wheel and i'd be afraid to take it any further than that.

another extreme example from a fellow dubber in the uk
8 inch wide d90 with a 195/40 tire

10 GT3

First, I think you mean a Toyo RA-1, competition tire, not an R-1R. I hope you don't mean a T1-R, which is a street tire. They don't make an RA-1 in a 205/50-16, but they do make a 205/55-16. I am not sure what you are thinking your performance gain would be in doing this? It sounds like you just bought the wrong wheels are are trying to justify it by your description.

There are 3 critical width dimensions to be concerned width: tread width, section width and rim width. The first critical measurement is tread width. The tread width will NOT increase on a tire by over widening it on a rim. You would be then running on the sidewall, which has a completely different composition than the tread pattern. This will mess with several things. If you run normal pressure to get propper heating, the tire will wear heavily in the center and now have much grip due to a small section are on the road. If you drop the pressures to compensate, then you lose a lot of the heat in the tire and take it out of the optimal temperature range and again lose grip. The next problem is a wider wheel weighs more. Even though you have magnesium wheels, a 7.5'" wide wheel will weigh less than a 9.0" wide wheel of the same type. The bottom line is there is NO performance advantage to under tiring a wheel.

For a 205/55-16 RA-1, the optimal wheel is actually a 16x7.5". Why? When you look at the critical dimensions, the tread width is only 7.3". A wider rim won't change the tread width. At 7.5", which is the maximum rim width recommended by the manufacturer for this tire, the overall section width is 8.8". Remember that wheels are measured by the inside dimensions (bead to bead), not the outside dimensions. If you mention the outside dimensions of you rim width, a 7.5" rim will actually be close to 8.5" and very close to the section width. You neve want your section width to be less than the overall rim width or you can start having bead sealing problems.

My $.02 is if you are only allowed to run a 205 tire and are running RA-1's, can you go down to a 15" wheel? A 205/50-15 on a 15x7.5" wheel is a very good setup.