ukscooby2000

iTrader: (1)

hello if i had 215/35/18 on my classic will it slow my excelartaion down compare to 205/40/17.

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

18's are far to big for a classic IMO.....all show and no go so to speak. 17's are plenty big enough for a classic. The rolling radius of the 18 should stay the same as the 17s so what you will end up with is a very low side wall and a very stiff ride.

My mate has been fitting tyers for over 15 years and does not recommmend 18s.

P1 FEK

iTrader: (1)

Why not? Some classics came with 17's and then 18's as Prodrive upgrade options.

swampster

iTrader: (1)

I actually like the look of 18's on my car..well I will once they've been refurbed or replaced. Just wish the ride wasn't as twitchy with them on!

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Like I said "IMO".... but I can't see why you would want 18's on a classic other than for looks/show.

DannyBoy007

iTrader: (7)

I've had all sizes on my classic, 2 sets of 16", 1 set of 17" and now on 18" and have to agree with the above. 18" look nice but the ride is hard and you feel every pot hole on the road. By far the best were the 17" with it's wider tyre than the 16" and the ride was spot on.

drb5

iTrader: (4)

The P1 was built by Prodrive who setup the car to be used with 18's and not 17's.

It would surprise me quite a bit, if the 18's were worse on the classic than 17's and yet Prodrive still used them.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Hmm, I was running 17" radius alloys with normal STI suspension and Eibach springs. This was pretty hard tbh and you noticed rattled inside the cabin with this setup. Putting my pipe &slippers on when I bought a set of 18's, I had the stock springs put back on. While still pretty solid, the overall ride is bit more pleasant to me than the eibach/17 setup thaat I ran for almost 2 years. In my opinion it would not be nice at all combining lowered springs/stock shocks with 18's if using the car for anything other than track days.

knobby_2000

I too run 18"s and find the ride hard...the corners in the dry are ok but when its wet I find myself waiting for the rear to twitch...and its soo true about the potholes/speed bumps/draincovers etc....I will be changing from them to a set of 17"s in the very near future.

With 17"s what would be the best size for a classic...?

Paul666

ukscooby2000,
In answer to your question, with the tyre sizes you have quoted the 18s will be a little slower accelerating as they have a larger diameter and therefore a larger rolling radius. It will give you better fuel economy as you will cover more ground for every revolution of the wheel.

As for the other comments about 17s and 18s it down to personal choice, I’ve got 18s to go on mine but it’s all about feel, the less sidewall the more road feel.
Thanks,
Paul.

LEUVEN

No, theres more chance of the actual weight of the wheels making a noticable difference, and even then you are talking less than a car length over something like a drag strip which is hardly important on the road.

When I bought a set of 18" wheels, before putting them on my car I put one of them on top of one of the 17" wheels I took off the car and also one of the original standard 16" wheels that came with the car which I had kept and stacked that on top of 17" and 18" wheels and after putting the pressures to 28psi there was no noticable difference, in fact I would expect that if all three sets would have had the same tyre make and model then there would be no difference atall.

As for stiffness and handling, The 16" wheels did have a little more understeer but then they did have some pretty poor tyres on, while the 17" and 18" wheels/tyres combo were too similar to notice without going on track, and I noticed more change from having different tyre pressures than the two different sizes to be honest.

ukscooby2000

iTrader: (1)

thank you all for your replys been a great help i love to have 18s for looks and that but i think i will go for 17s as it is a every day car thanks.