View single post by Tom Bradley
 Posted: 10-28-2014 05:31 am
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Tom Bradley

 

Joined: 07-15-2013
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 I finally replaced my ancient 205/60R13's with 15 inch wheels and Michelin 205/60R15's. I was considering putting the Kumho's on the stock wheels, but could not bring myself to trust tires that only cost $50.  Not with the way I like to take corners.

The new tires only only a few % bigger than the old ones, but there is definitely a noticeable difference in performance. Acceleration is slower, but RPM's on the freeway are lower, which is what I was really after. Cornering traction is also better: the old tires were so dried out they tended to slip without any squealing warning. I have not been able to get these new ones to squeal except when accelerating from stop around a tight corner.

I would not recommend these for a show car, though. The front of the front tires looked awfully close to the fender wall at some steering angles, so I ended up doing some sheet metal work to increase the clearance for my peace of mind. In retrospect, I think something closer to the stock diameter might have been a better choice.

On the positive side, my speedometer reads something close to the actual speed for the first time since I have owned the car (about 30 years), which makes my geeky engineer nature happy.

I should also mention that the larger tires also gives a bit more road clearance, which makes getting over speed bumps much easier.  There were some places where I used to scrape something no matter how carefully I went over that are no problem at all now.

Last edited on 10-28-2014 06:07 am by Tom Bradley