Paul in VA

Hi:
I am hopefully in the final throws of buying a ZR-1 joining the fun. What is the ideal size for wheels (and tires if you wish) for a totally street driven ZR-1?

Thakks... Paul

cv67

The one with a taller sidewall.

LT5corsa

Paul,


Depends on what you want to do with it?

Drive long distance? Show only? Drag? Inexpensive wheel?

So many ways you can go with it....

Many have C6 Z06 wheels?

More details



David

rickyrj1

18's for any kind of driving
18's front 19's rear for driving & show
19's front 20's rear limited driving & show,show
JMHO
Enjoy your new purchase and welcome to our club

You should have posted sooner, I just sold a set of 17" Fiskes FM5 w/tires Cheap! $1000.00. The guy who owned them left the country

TommyL

I like the look of 19's all the way around.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-z...et-wheels.html

threestar40

Touche'

Bone Stock buddy. Nothing beats it...the engineers know what they are doing.

Rick

Zrxmax

Their is a reason formula 1 cars run 17 & 18 inch wheels exclusively. If you want to follow the fad then buy the out sized wheels and tires. Just be real careful driving because 1 pot hole can spoil your day. In California it is only a matter of time before you find one of those potholes. Sidewalls play a vital part in wheel and tire life out here in Socal.

RC000E

Awwwww WTF!!!!!!

rickyrj1

What size are modern high perf. sports cars running today?
I got to beleive engineers today know what they are doing also.
In my book they all look good, I just prefer larger.

Aurora40

To me, the issue is that the car came with a very short wheel/tire from the factory. It's not like it came with 17's with a huge sidewall.

So as you go to larger wheels, for one the sidewall becomes insanely short, and for two you start to have a larger/taller overall wheel. The lack of sidewall looks bad to me, but what looks even worse is this huge wheel in a pretty small wheelwell. 18's look pretty good, but past that I think they start to look disproportional and bad.

Aurora40

FYI on stuff like Formula 1, they are limited to a brake rotor of about 12"x1.1" (slightly smaller than the J55 rotor). So there would be no need to run larger wheels to fit larger brakes. The rules don't dictate the wheel sizes, but do dictate the overall size of the wheel/tire combo. Really the cars are completely incomparable to a street car. They weigh about 30% of a ZR-1, have more than twice the power, and more than 4 times the cornering grip.

All I mean is I don't think they run 17-18" wheels because they want to survive potholes or because bigger wheels look too blingy. They run them because that is what makes sense within the rules they are bound by.

Cdn ZR1 95

I guess I'm the only one. Love the 5 spoke factory 17" Amolds

Paul in VA

I mainly plan long distance highway trips and some jaunts through the mountains in WV. 100% street, pleasure driving [no commuting].

VetteMed

For me, it doesn't get any better.

scholtmj

315/35-17s are getting to be slim pick'ns. If you go to 18's you can run 335/30-18 which has a few more choices.

Aurora40

Nope, you aren't. But they are kind of common. And GM ones can be pricey enough that some nice custom stuff isn't much more expensive.

SurfnSun

Tires are going to be a problem in the near future would be my guess. Definitely hope Im wrong, but I was buying aftermarket it would be 18's around.

Rkreigh

like the 18/335s with 18/285 in front

I had the ccw classics in that size and liked the way the car drove a bit better than the 19's all the way around

if anyone needs them I have a set of 95 a molds for sale

fronts are nice, the rears have some "lug nut rash" chips around the center

will also have some hoosier 17/335 drag radials to go with them which stick like grim death and are great for the digs.

PM me if interested for pricing & pics

will post them for sale soon.

vettehardt

The only reason the cars today are running larger wheels/tires is due to design people. The fad has been to put larger wheels on a car to "improve" the looks. The engineeres have to adjust and make the combo work. Have you ever read the book "All Corvettes Are Red"? In there it has a chapter about how the C5s were going to have the 96 grand sport wheels on them, but the design department wanted 18" in the rear. There was a battle between the engineers and design, and eventually design won out. The engineeres had to make the package work with the 18" on the rear. That is why a C5 can actually run better lap times with 17" grand sport wheels on the rear than the factory wheels.

With bigger wheels, you also should get bigger brakes. The further away the rim is from the center, the more rotating mass and inertia it has and the harder it is to get it to stop.

To me bigger wheels look stupid anyways. I can see going 1" over stock, but no bigger. I race with 16" C4 wheels on my 73 because there arn't any tires available in 15" sizes anymore. The 16" are on their way out also so soon I will have to step up to 17" to find a good race tire. The 17"+ in my opinion looks stupid on a C3.

If I were you, I would get the 17" and lowere the car about 0.5-1" and that will look great.

Zrxmax

I don't know if you were pointing that comment in my direction... either way.

The reason for an 18" limit ( and I should have stated this in my 1st post ) has to do with wheel inertia. The size and weight of the wheels are critical to handling in a tradeoff with grip and the ability to perform fast directional transitions. The wheel and tire forces operate as a separate entity realtive to the car it is on. So, at the end of the day I want the lightest wheel with the best tire availble for the conditions I will be driving in. So, I want carbon fiber wheels ( or the lightest possible ) and shaved tires for the optimun combo to carve up the track with. Perhaps the tires won't last long, however, it will be the best of all possibilities for ultimate performance due to the lightest weight. Just paraphrasing what I read years ago. I now know that it is very unlikely I will ever buy a bigger tire than an 18 incher for my ZR-1. Your opinion may vary!