pj550v12

Say I were to get 19 inch wheels, and lower the car say about .75 inches would it be posble to maintain the overall height of the car. I'm sure it would ultimatly depend on the tire size. Say I wanted to go with fairly low profile tires, say somethin like 245/40/19. The only reason I ask is because the ride height seems to be almost perfect right now in terms of avoiding rubbing on hills. In essense it sounds like it would work, increased wheel size, lower car, end up with around origional height. Is there something I'm missing?

jun14scr

iTrader: (1)

increasing to a 19" wheel and running a 245/40 will still have ALMOST the same overall diameter as the 18" + x ratio tire you are running. you don't want to change this diameter as it will effect your MPH among other things. maybe VDC too. just don't get the springs.

to answer your question, the car will not be the same height. as, springs are connected to the shocks, which are connected to the control arms, and this will lower your whole overall vehicle. if you ran a smaller sidewall, it will only give you the visual appearance that the car is higher, since there will be more fender gap.

er, i think i said that right. my brain is toasted.

manofsteele2003

iTrader: (7)

Your overall ground clearance will remain the same but the actual ride height will be affected.
I have 19" wheels and lowering springs and I still don't rub or scrape over anything.

live steam

Do a little homework. Here's a few calculators to help answer some of your questions. Lowering the car is lowering the car. Less suspension travel means less suspension travel. No way around that. The other guy is wrong. You will have less ground clearance if you use lowering springs. That's called physics and geometry.

http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCal...?action=submit - tire size calculator

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html - tire size calculator

http://toy4two.home.mindspring.com/offset.html - this calculates wheel offset in relation to original

jreiter

iTrader: (6)

I think what pj550v12 is actually asking is: What if he gets lowering springs and then gets tires that are *larger* in diameter than stock in order to compensate for that lowering. Yes, larger diameter tires will of course raise the car off the ground more than smaller diameter tires. However, there's just no way you'll be able to get tires that will compensate for a .75" drop. That would mean you'd need tires that are 1.5" larger than stock diameter, and that's just not going to happen.

Ideally you want your aftermarket tires to end up being the same diameter as stock, or at least as close to it as possible. Making them larger would have a number of undesirable side effects:

1) Potential rubbing.
2) Speedometer error.
3) Reduced acceleration.

Stick with tires that match up with the stock diameters.