tire sizing

[trueno13]

Hey , I'm looking to lower my car a lot more and need to figure out what size would work best .. right now I do have coilovers and 15x8 0 ofset wheels with 195/50 tires ... I would like a decent stretch ... thanks ( pics, if you have them would be even better )

[Moto-P]

15x8.0 is the wheel size and not the offset. Offset is the postion of the wheel hub center in relation to the wheel rim, and is measured in millimeters.
There is no way to stretch a tire on the same wheel as it only mounts one way on the same given wheel. To stretch a 195/50-15 tire, you need to get a wider wheel. This size tire will fit up to a 15x9 sefely, or alternately while decreasing grip you can get a narrower tire like 175 on and stretch it to fit over a 15x8 that you have.

Lowering a car has nothing to do with offsets and wheel/tire aside from choosing appropriately what will fit, and making sure that your suspension is capable of retaining proper function.

[gotzoom?]

What Moto said. I'm running 195/50/15 tires on 15X8 zero offset wheels. I had to roll my rear fenders and cut the fender liner tabs off of the front fender to get things to fit without cutting tires. If you want the car to handle well, you're probably going the wrong direction, but you may not care about handling if you're going for a particular look.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

195s should go on a 6" rim. Anything more than 7 and you are sacrificing cornering, acceleration and even safety all for a fad.

[jondee86]

Kind of an interesting topic Most of the pics of stretch on-line
show cars with 8 or 9 inch wide negative offset rims, with narrow low
profile tires. Invariably the cars are also lowered... so it appears that
the stretch is just there to get the tread far enough inboard to stop the
guard sitting on top of the tread. Guard rolling and pulling is also used
to get a bit of clearance to allow some small amount of suspension
movement. In front extreme amounts of negative camber are also
used to try and keep the tread inside the guards. Keywords.. sacked,
hella flush, bagged, cambered out etc.

Personally, I have nothing against the look if it is not overdone, but I do
wonder about the practicality of driving some of these cars on the street.
Here in NZ there are regulations regarding the amount of stretch permitted
on road legal cars, which makes me think that the road safety people have
some doubts about mega stretch as well.

According to the regs a 225/55 is the smallest tire you can fit on an
8 inch rim and be road legal, so just be glad you're not living here !!!

Cheers... jondee86

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Kind of an interesting topic Most of the pics of stretch on-line
show cars with 8 or 9 inch wide negative offset rims, with narrow low
profile tires. Invariably the cars are also lowered... so it appears that
the stretch is just there to get the tread far enough inboard to stop the
guard sitting on top of the tread. Guard rolling and pulling is also used
to get a bit of clearance to allow some small amount of suspension
movement. In front extreme amounts of negative camber are also
used to try and keep the tread inside the guards. Keywords.. sacked,
hella flush, bagged, cambered out etc.

Personally, I have nothing against the look if it is not overdone, but I do
wonder about the practicality of driving some of these cars on the street.
Here in NZ there are regulations regarding the amount of stretch permitted
on road legal cars, which makes me think that the road safety people have
some doubts about mega stretch as well.

According to the regs a 225/55 is the smallest tire you can fit on an
8 inch rim and be road legal, so just be glad you're not living here !!!

Cheers... jondee86

That's the smallest tire that should go on an 8" rim. I am pretty open minded to most mods at least to the point of tolerance if not enjoyment but more than performance stretch and camber is not one I can get behind in the slightest.
Too much camber looks like an elephant sat on a car. More than the smallest amount of stretch looks like a 400 lb woman in a bikini. If that's what does it for you then I guess I shouldn't judge but you don't have to drive the woman on the same road as me and expect her to stop and turn in reasonable amounts of time.
I can almost tolerate some variation in cars like low riders because they don't and can't really do anything more than cruise the strip at 20.
Ruining the performance characteristics of somewhat sporty cars like AE86 and AW11 is a whole other thing. The worst part about it is that it all originated from people trying to copy the race car look. Wider wheels and more camber looks more faster. But what happens when you run out of wheel well? Just run skinny tires because that is so race car. But at least you still get to keep those wide wheels because every race car driver knows that's where the traction comes from.
And then somewhere along the way this


Turned into this



And somehow people still think it's cool.