C5 Z06 Staggered Wheels 17/18
- Thread starter EcSy#2671
- Start date
atkonkler
Is this your bush?
Just do one size* then you can rotate them. I did staggered fit....it was a PIA. It looked cool but wasn't that functional. But hey...you do what you want. I just ended up sources two sets of c5 wagon wheels and used the 17s and sold the 18s off.
DaveP's Ghost
Well-known member
These things understeer so badly, I wonder what the results would be to run the wide tires on the front and the narrow tires on the rear? It would sure look goofy (the reason I'll never run this way), and the wide probably won't fit on the front without hitting the cladding anyway. Just food for thought.
There have been discussions on Corvette Forum where a couple of guys have run 315s front and rear in Auto-X with favorable results. Auto-X conditions present hard braking going into very sharp, tight, corners, so a car that is balanced at higher speeds, understeers at low speeds. Hard braking moves the weight bias to the front, increasing understeer. Putting more tire on the front improves the condition.
Another thing I've never seen mentioned with staggered sizes on SyTy AWD is front vs rear tire wear. I had 275/315 on DesertSy. I beat the crap out of that truck and the fronts wore out (evenly across the tread, not alignment) in 15,000 miles. The rears were about 50% worn. Why such a huge difference? With AWD, and the 35/65 split, the fronts are doing 35% of the acceleration work, plus the cornering work. The rears are doing 35% less acceleration work. (Even with matched front/rear sizes, this condition shows up.) Wider rear tires increases the difference in wear even furthur because the wider rear tire has more contact area (in proportion to the front) to distribute the same 65% to the surface.
Stagger wears the fronts at about twice the rate of the rears. Which for those that run 315/35-17 is good, because the only 315 street tire available is a $350 Michelin. The long accepted Sumitomo is out of production.
There have been discussions on Corvette Forum where a couple of guys have run 315s front and rear in Auto-X with favorable results. Auto-X conditions present hard braking going into very sharp, tight, corners, so a car that is balanced at higher speeds, understeers at low speeds. Hard braking moves the weight bias to the front, increasing understeer. Putting more tire on the front improves the condition.
Another thing I've never seen mentioned with staggered sizes on SyTy AWD is front vs rear tire wear. I had 275/315 on DesertSy. I beat the crap out of that truck and the fronts wore out (evenly across the tread, not alignment) in 15,000 miles. The rears were about 50% worn. Why such a huge difference? With AWD, and the 35/65 split, the fronts are doing 35% of the acceleration work, plus the cornering work. The rears are doing 35% less acceleration work. (Even with matched front/rear sizes, this condition shows up.) Wider rear tires increases the difference in wear even furthur because the wider rear tire has more contact area (in proportion to the front) to distribute the same 65% to the surface.
Stagger wears the fronts at about twice the rate of the rears. Which for those that run 315/35-17 is good, because the only 315 street tire available is a $350 Michelin. The long accepted Sumitomo is out of production.
2500avalanche
Well-known member
Dave, Great post and thoughts with the wearing of tires. I noticed this on the first set I had in those sizes. Figured it was tire age, but now it gets me thinking a little. I have found TOyo and Nitto carry the sizes as well.
DaveP's Ghost
Well-known member
I have Nitto 555s on my C4 ZR-1. At best, they are just "ok". They shake pretty bad until they smooth out, and they don't have the grip the Sumitomos have. I don't push the car very hard, because I don't want to find that the limit is lower than I expect it to be and wreck a valuable, rare car. I wish the Sumitomos were still available, but they weren't at the time (Fall of 2020) when I needed tires for it.