205/50/15 ? ? ?
07-21-2003
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205/50/15 ? ? ?
the red civic on hondawerx.com has 205/50/15's. THe tire calculator rates this at like 5.7 % too fast. my question is how off would your speedo be really? could you notice driving through town? and would it put extra miles on your engine? and finally, does having a smaller than stock wheel/tire package increase acceleration? if u guys could help out and answer any of these questions i would greatly appreciate it. thanx
07-21-2003
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Rep Power: 0 Since the smaller tire makes the speedometer read too fast, that means your wheels are turning faster but the car is not moving as fast as indicated.
(NOTE: I'm rounding everything off to 5.5% speedometer error) With 205/50-15's, 60MPH on the speedometer means the car is actually traveling at about 56.6MPH. So when driving thru town at 30MPH you would only be off by a little over 2MPH.
As far as putting extra miles on the drivetrain -- NO. You actually put less miles on the rest of the car
The miles you put on the drivetrain go from the tire/wheel - axles - tranny - engine - (odometer and the miles are clocked thru tranny). So if the odometer says you went 10,000 miles, the drivetrain has gone 10,000 miles. The body of the Civic has just gone along for the ride, so if you had attached an external odometer that wasn't hooked up to the drivetrain (or another Civic with stock speedometer/odometer had followed you exactly for all 10,000 miles), it would show the body had not traveled the extra 5.5% (550 miles) worth of speedometer error you were talking about.
So the drivetrain would show 10,000 miles and the rest of the car would have actually travelled 9,450 miles (10,000 minus 5.5%). Simple, right?
Yes, a smaller than stock diameter tire helps with acceleration.
(NOTE: I'm rounding everything off to 5.5% speedometer error) With 205/50-15's, 60MPH on the speedometer means the car is actually traveling at about 56.6MPH. So when driving thru town at 30MPH you would only be off by a little over 2MPH.
As far as putting extra miles on the drivetrain -- NO. You actually put less miles on the rest of the car
The miles you put on the drivetrain go from the tire/wheel - axles - tranny - engine - (odometer and the miles are clocked thru tranny). So if the odometer says you went 10,000 miles, the drivetrain has gone 10,000 miles. The body of the Civic has just gone along for the ride, so if you had attached an external odometer that wasn't hooked up to the drivetrain (or another Civic with stock speedometer/odometer had followed you exactly for all 10,000 miles), it would show the body had not traveled the extra 5.5% (550 miles) worth of speedometer error you were talking about. So the drivetrain would show 10,000 miles and the rest of the car would have actually travelled 9,450 miles (10,000 minus 5.5%). Simple, right?
Yes, a smaller than stock diameter tire helps with acceleration.
08-05-2003
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Rep Power: 0 Just my .02 cents, I love my 205/5015's, I run 195/65's for the winter and the difference in acceleration is noticable... also... a flagrant picture of mine on H&R Sports for a cosmetic comparison of what they look like....
08-06-2003
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Rep Power: 0 It is said that you should not have a tire that exceeds 3% too fast on tirerack.com. A 50 would exceed it but a 55 wouldn't providing you have an EX. I dunno about the others.
08-06-2003
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Rep Power: 0 One of the things it can mess up is your ABS, the wheel speed sensors assume the tire is 24.x" in diameter, so moving to a smaller tire can inhibit ABS performance, but my brakes seem to work fine with the abs and all...
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