Nope not the SC. I had 18's on it first (stock) and then put the 20's on it long before I put on the SC and the car performed the very same and got better in the turns do to the wider 20's. "Ride quality" is the only place I took a hit on when I changed over from the 18's.

 

True Nuke and I nor anyone else is saying that is not a performance drop but, that drop is negligible when your talking about street performance and daly driving.

 

The 45 sidewall is a bit much for a 20" rim especially if you are lowering the car.

Keep in mind the sidewall is a calculation of the width so going with a 275 or 285 with a 45 sidewall will be a lot more tire then a 255 with a 45 sidewall tire.


If you do go with a sidewall like that you wouldn't have ride quality impact but you would lose some performance as your drive ratio will be lower. That can be a good reason for some gears though :-)

At the end of the day get what you like as it's your car. The performance impacts (rather ride quality or acceleration) can be overcome easily.

 

What size wheels to put on a s197 is prolly the most opinionated mod there is. No other mod will stir up opinions more.....in my opinion that is. LOL

For me 255/285 is the size. I personally dont like the look of 20's at all.

 

At this point i'm still not sure what the best tire size is. I'm not as concerned with performance as much as I am look. Performance mods so far: SLP exhaust and 93 octane Bama tune. Future mods: cold air intake and nos. Here are the options for the offset on the wheels i'm buying.

Front 34 or 45
Back 40

Once again thanks for your help!

 

I really can't see how you could not tell a difference man.
Maybe you just have a bigger difference gauge since you went to a SC and got a huge gain at one point in time you know what I mean?

I mean honestly. The difference I felt when changing wheels was dramatic when it comes to pull. Part of me thinks it's a little denial from the people who love the looks of their 20's.

The other part of me... like the other person says.... thinks its that either the person has big mods to make big power anyways, or really can only tell HUGE performance changes such as 100 HP gains.

And really you talking about other people seeing your tail lights is a null point in this.
This has to do with YOUR ride compared to YOUR ride again hehe.

You know I'm not trying to bash or critisize you Cutter.
I know you know your stuff like many of us here but it just amazes me that you could not tell
a difference.... especially when other mods were tiny.

 

I personally like the looks of 19's but i'm not very knowledgeable on the subject of tire size and it's effects on performance. I would just figure the bigger they get, the more they weigh therefore diminishing performance (at least in terms of ET's). This may be why you see lightweight 15's on drag radials...i'm just saying.

 

Ok OP I didn't want to read all the posts because this is turning into a debate that no one will win because neither side wants to change their mind. I have 20 inch godspeed wheels with 255/35/20 in front and 295/30/20 in the rear. It fits great, looks good, and didn't throw off my spedo that much at all (checked it with my GPS its like 1-2mph off).

Oh and I read one post about 20s hurting performance because of more rotational mass. 20 inch godspeed wheels are 1lb lighter than 18 inch godspeed wheels. No thats not a typo. I was worried about going to 20 inch wheels because of the bad rap they get sometimes, but I like them and haven't noticed a bad ride quality or less performance.

 

I just went from 20's to 18's and my car doesn't feel any faster to me. That is probably because both my 20's and my 18's weigh the same amount on average. My 18x9.5s (all around) weigh 54 lbs whereas my 20x9s (front) weigh 50 lbs and my 20x10s (rear) weigh 58 lbs. Don't let people fool you into thinking that 20's will kill your performance. All the people who say that they felt the effects of 18's and wouldn't dare try 20's forget that when they bought their 18's they added an additional 1-2 inches to all their wheels and they added more rubber to boot. The reason I went from 20's to 18's was ride quality. The car is much nicer to drive around town now. If all roads were brand new and smooth, I would be rolling on 20's all day long. It's just not the case where I live...

 

No one said that you'd see any significant change in performance due to heavier wheels (and yes, there are some larger diameter wheels that weigh less than smaller wheels but those are more the exception and tend to be expensive); just that it will affect performance to some degree, including handling. If you were to gain about 5 lbs/wheel on average going from a 17 or 18 to a 20, then you've just put on 20 lbs.. Many folks that do weight loss mods are thrilled at losing 20 lbs, especially in rotational mass.

But the OP was talking about a tire who's O.D. just didn't seem right and in the process of informing him about his tire OD choices, we've skewed a bit and went into the 20 vs 17/18's as we always seem to do (and as stated earlier, nobody will "win"). I beleive that we've made our point. His decision is up to him.