Windsor,
I must say, for a guy with your name, it's about time you put a Ford small
block in your garage. ;-)
Now, to your question, first off, I paid about twice about nine months ago
more than what the AVS's are going for now. Such a deal!! You don't talk
about your rims, but you should match the tire width to the rim width.
Don't make the mistake of putting too much tire on a skinny rim. This is a
prescription for disaster. Especially, don't put the
too_big_tires_on_too_skinny_rims on the back. Radials have a lot of
sidewall flex, plus the slip angle will be somewhat greater too. This will
make your car's handling very twitchy and perhaps unpredictable under
extreme circumstances. Now, maybe your rims are wider in back, which if
this is the case, ignore the preceding comments. The rims in front should
have the maximum possible rear spacing. This is both for appearance and for
handling and driveablility. (It's good to have the steering axis intersect
the road not too far inboard the center of the tire contact patch.) The
problem with 13" rims is you can't get as much negative offset as with 15"
rims. Also, as I'm sure your aware, the tire choices for 13" rims is next
to zip. What would probably be best up front are 195's, but alas, they
don't have them in this size. Assuming your rims are wide enough to handle
the 205's, then you might consider adding a little more negative camber up
front. Having -1 degree camber will probably tuck those puppies right under
the fender and might even improve your cornering too.
I have to agree with Bob "Herbeam" Willis' suggestion to "get some new
wheels", although I would advise 15" for the reasons I've given.
My two cents for today,
Bobb
At 09:55 AM 8/9/99 -0700, Windsor Owens wrote:
>I need some new tires for my tiger (13"). I am very fond of Yokohamas, I've
>had good luck with them on my BMW & Porsche in the past. Tire rack has some
>AVS intermediates available in 185/60/13 and 205/60/13. The 205's are
>definetely going on the back. While 205's will fit on the front, they stick
>out beyond the fender line and look stupid. For that reason, I'm inclined
>to go with 185's up front. But they sound awfully skinny, and I don't want
>the car to understeer anymore than it already does (has 205's all around,
>currently). Any thoughts out there?
>
>Windsor
Robert L. Palmer
UCSD, Dept. of AMES
619-822-1037 (o)
760-599-9927 (h)
rpalmer@ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
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