What is the advantage of having an 18'' diameter rim in front and a 19'' in the back? Is it just for fatter tires, or cosmetics?

Thanx

 

There is NO advantage, in fact, the opposite.

 

What exactly is the disadvantage? If it was so bad why would the new corvette and other cars run with it?

p.s. I dont mean to sound like a smart *** It is just something I have been wondering about

 

There may be some performance reasons to design a car such that it uses smaller front wheels. It allows lower front fenders, for instance, which may be better aerodynamically. But I would imagine styling itself is also one of the main reasons that cars that run smaller diameter front wheels have done so. It seems unlikely that there is one single reason for the choice. Certainly that is true in general, but it's probably true even for a specific car. The world is a complicated place.

Once a car has been designed, there is really no compelling performance reason to switch to such a setup. There is no specific magic in having 1" smaller diameter front wheels. And if the car was designed to run the same diameter wheels front and rear, there is a decent chance that it will look funny if you make the wheels on one end larger. It's a switch in the opposite direction, but I can tell you that C5s look a little odd when you switch to running the same size wheels front and rear.

19" wheels require such tiny sidewalls on the tires to fit on the FD that performance suffers. Note that Corvettes don't have to use rubber-band-thin tires with their 19"s because the wheel well is larger. They also tend to be heavy, which is bad for performance.

-Max

 

Actually the corvette design was made in early 1994 that if you put front lower wheels and higher rear end it gives the rear end better grip and the front end better turning it also makes the bumper closer to the ground there for causing more aerodynamic in the wind force it forces the bumper closer to the ground but this will not work on a 2nd gen or 3rd gen because the 05 C6 Corvette was designed with 2 diffrent wheel types, one for the rear HAS to be bigger cannot be same size and the front HAS to be smaller or else the car does not preform correctly, it does make it handle better and it does make it i guess maybe you might see a 1-10 mph diffrence if your going 110 already but other then that its just styling cause when you see a car that sits up in the back compared to front when it has the body of a C6 corvette that just looks tasty and drooly although i do not like corvettes my dad is a freak for one he has 3 of them, so he told me. but yes they do make a diffrence but they will not make a diffrence on an rx-7 and probally will look ugly!

-van

 

there is a old thread with pictures of a FD with 18 F 19 R if you are only interested in asthetics

 

thanx for all the replies. I was only interested in it if it followed the ol' form follows function rule.

 

Your answer is for the handling to stay the same and have still have a taller tire for the rear wheel drive car to match the R&P.

The Vette was a 245/45 YR17 F 25.7" OverallDiam. 7.5-9" RimWidthRange
275/40 YR18 R 26.7" OverallDiam. 9-11" RimWidthRange

Dose this sound like some BS.. No it’s not. Look at the OverallDiam.
All my V8 conversions have smaller wheels up front on the FB’s 17x7.5f 20x9.5R is the last one I have done. I need top speed for this last car and so I needed a taller wheel/tire combo for it.

Hope that helps your question.