Sometime in the next few months I am going to have to replace my tires and I want to put on something better then what I have on now.

I have been thinking of using 16 in. wheels from a newer Bonnie or GP to replace the wire design 15 in. wheels on my 89. The 5 Spoke wheels 16 in. that the newer GP'* and bonnies came with should fit just fine on my bolt patern right?

There are four tire sizes I have been thinking of using.

225/50 16R
225/55 16R
235/50 16R
235/55 16R

I was originaly planning on using the 225/50'* but they would lower the car more then an inch and I think that woudl be exessive. Right now I am thinking of either the 225/55 or the 235/50'*.

The 225/55'* would lower the car by almost an inch which would not be that exessive and the 235/50'* would lower the car a little less then the 225'* but would be much wider.

I am not really sure which one I should go with. The 225/55'* seem to be a made by more companies in more tread variations then the 235/50'*. The 235/50'* would also be very wide and I wonder if they would look stupid and/or have clearance issues.

I might just have to buy one of each and have them mounted then do a trial fit. Does anyone know a place that has a good return policy? I am not sure how the tire rack is about returns.

Cant tell you too much about the specific sizes you mentioned but I am running with P255/50/R16. They end up being about 10 1/2 inches wide. This is the widest tire I can Physically fit inside my wheel wells. At full lock of the steering they nick the plastic frame gaurd and the welded lip in the rear had to be hammered back to prevent blowing the tires on compresion of the shocks. They have worked great on my car. I can take some inerchanges up to about %40 faster than I could with the stock tires. I've had camaros, Grand Marquis, ton of ricers, and many other cars that almost lost it in the curves trying to keep up with what these tires could do.

You might see how wide they are in my pic to the left or blow. They look pretty goon on my car. I think it gives the car a lot more aggresive stance than a thinner tire.

Go here and you can figure any tire/rim combination. Be careful about going too wide. Cars that were not built with performance in mind usually have clearance problems with wider tires. Also, be careful about lowering the car with shorter tire as your speedo will be off considerably.

http://www.c5-corvette.com/tirecalc.htm

Jay

Yeah that site is where i figured out how much the new tires would lower the car. Does not bother me if the speedo is a little off since I used to have a jeep with oversized tires and got used to doing the conversion in my head for various speeds.


I know a couple of shops that can recalibrate my speedo/odometer if it really starts to bother me.

How wide are the wheels that you are running the 255/50 R16'* on?

Are they the stock 95 ssei wheels?

I don't know if I would want to go that wide but maybe 245/50'* would be good.

They are running on stock 5 star rims. When I went to the shop I told them I wanted the widest,lowest profile tire they had that would fit my car with stock rims. They are 1/2 inch shorter overall and lower my car 1/4 incch all around. :pimp:

They're a softer rubber as well so they STICK when I go WOT from a rolling start with minimal wheel spin from a stand still. Great launches, and ever better cornering.

Unfortunately, with the softer rubber (and my lead foot and driving habbits ) they don't last as long as the stock tires did.