Anyone with waffles and 50 series tires? Pros and cons.
 

I have a nice set of waffles in the attic that I might want to refinish. My problem is that I hate 70 series tires. The look and the performance. I was thinking of using them as autoX wheels so I don't burn up my nice tires on my Rotas.

Would the 195-50-13 tire be a noticeable in acceleration? Like installing a 4.88 gear maybe? It would have to lower the roll out of the wheels by quite a bit.

Anyone have pictures of waffles with thin track tires? BTW I'm lowered about 3 inches on REspeed coils.

Pros:
- for autocross they might be the ticket for some types of courses

Cons:
- Will look really small on the car. Like roller skate wheels almost. Since your lowered
it might not be so bad.

They will be very short fat tires. I had the Sunmitomo HTR 200 175/50/13's on the Silver One when I bought it, I hated them. They lowered the car, making it bottom out all the time and harder to get in and out. The look of the 50 series sidewall on a 13" rim is terrible, in my opinion, leaving big gaps in the wheel wells. These are really short tires.

http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_...0119_large.jpg

http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_...0115_large.jpg

Michael just came up with a nice looking 205/60/13, similar to the old Sumitomo HTR 200's with the RWL as a rare bonus:

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.p...&nichtweiter=1

http://ssl.delti.com/tyre-pictures/D...rRadialGTS.jpg

It would be interesting to hear how they perform

lol. That does look a little silly. :)

Try Sumitomo HTRwhatevertheyares in 215/50/13. That's what I've been running for a few years now. With the car lowred, it doesn't look bad at all. Speedometer error is only a couple mph at that size, providing a slightly lower gear ratio for a quicker feeling car. I highly recommend it...

215-50-13 is what I have used with good results

No rubbing on 215/50/13's? What about mileage?

No rubbing in an fb or 82 626, or even my glc with 85 rx7 front struts and brakes. Mileage isnt anything to write home about, but I have been in love with the stance since day one.

I'll prolly make the switch at some point.

I used to run some 205/60/13's on waffles that looked decent, later I went to 185/60/13 (close out sale on sumitomo's like $35/tire) and hated them. There was a small improvement in acceleration but it wasn't really worth it, I think on paper it calculated out to be like changing from the stock 3.909 to 4.1.

So it was noticeable? I have 205-50-15 now which is about 1 inch shorter than stock. I have noticed that this car reads 2-3 MPH higher and like 1.5 % more mileage on the same trips than my FC. My FC reads 25.8 miles to work and the SA reads 26.2

Maybe 50-13s are a bit too small. I'd like to see some 60-13s on a lowered autoX'er.

MPG probably looks bad because your odometer would read incorrectly. You're probably getting the same mileage.

Here's a shot with the 215/50/13 Sumi's. Speedo error seems about 2-3 mph, but acceleration is improved a bit.