If one were to have the car set up such that it tended to understeer more than oversteer, is there any reason to NOT go the the same size wheel/tire front and rear.

AND...

are the OEM rear wheels the proper offset to fun on the front? furthurmore, could we run 4 'rear' wheels, (225 or 245 all the way around)?

 

Or could we run four "front" tires all around? We could then rotate them for even wear. I know the rear might be a little loose with narrow tires, but it might be fun.

 

I prefer placing the most meat where you can - thus not reducing the rear width and going with wider in front and aft. I'll do it one day, but for the time being, I'll stick to stock staggard stance.

 

are you guys alright?

just checking

 

For a RWD car, I like to have wider tires in back to be able to power out of turns better and not worry so much about power-on oversteer. Seems more fun than stepping on the gas on an understeering car (which probably wouldn't be smart).

 

hmmm ... making the tyre same width front and back (whether you match the front or back) will give you seriosuly more 'oversteery' setup, not 'understeery'. Just think about it - right now you have wider tyres at the back than the front and the car has no problem oversteering. Now either:
- take some grip away from the back (thinner tyres back)
- or put more grip at the front (wider fronts)
And what you get either way is much looser back (ie. eversteer).

If you want more 'understeery' set up and you wanna do it with tyres then either:
a) make the front's even thinner (that's what they did with the new Lotus Elise)
b) make the rears even wider (aka BoxsterS vs Boxster)

 

Exactly, so if we have the car dialed in to a neutral-to-understeer setup (alignment + thicker front swaybar maybe), and wanted to get a little more grip and return the car to the neutral-to-oversteer setup by going to the same width tire all around, would the OEM rear wheel fit properly in the front?

 

No, there is a hub difference.

 

I think its important to ask why Honda went with a staggered setup in the first place (or why any manufacturer would).

In the case of mid/rear engine cars with a substantial rear weight bias, the bigger rear tires intuitively make sense. But why do 50/50 cars like the Corvette, S2K, etc run a staggered setup?

Well, I believe there are a couple of reasons. However, I really don't _know_, so this is speculation.

1. Weight transfer under acceleration. You may be at 50/50 static, but under hard acceleration weight transfers to the rear.

2. Acceleration traction. When launching hard, you want maximum rear traction. Bigger tires give you this. So why not just mount similarly sized tires up front? Because you really don't need them to maximize cornering grip. In fact, extra wide tires will increase steering effort, tire drag, cost, weight, etc.

Just some things to think about.

UL

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ultimate lurker
[B]I think its important to ask why Honda went with a staggered setup in the first place (or why any manufacturer would).

In the case of mid/rear engine cars with a substantial rear weight bias, the bigger rear tires intuitively make sense.