What 18's fit all the way around? Sponsors, sell me some wheels!

[SUX2BU]

Originally Posted by Doc

The other issue with 18's and low profile tires is your car is now seriously lowered; 2" just because of the wheels, plus the additional drop from the low profile tires. You'll have ground clearance problems. Go with the taller sidewall tires.

How do you figure? The shorter tires i am looking at are only 1.7" shorter up front and 1.1" shorter out back. So going from stock to the 18's with lower profile tires will only drop the car .55" up front and .85" inches out back. I doubt you can even notice something that small.

Are you thinking that going from 20" to 18" wheels will lower your car 2"? Ride height doesn't matter one bit what wheels you have, it's all about the tire diameter.

[SUX2BU]

Originally Posted by Nine Ball

I'd stick with your first plan, the taller Nitto tires. Small wheels with short tires on the Camaro isn't very flattering to look at. I'm not a fan of the Pedders car appearance, but I can appreciate the handling at the road course with that combo. On the drag strip, you'll probably want that taller tire anyways. I love the tall drag radial and how it fills up the fender gap.

i also think the Pedders car looks a little odd with that size wheel/tire combo, but also think the Hurst Camaro (stock diameter tires) looks like it has a little too much sidewall on those 18's. So I think my second plan will work better.

Another plus from going with the smaller diameter tire is for launching at the track. Using a 1.1" smaller tire out back is the equivalent of going from stock 3.45 gears to 3.58 gears, like a mini gear swap. Any drag racer will tell you the best way to get a pig of a car out of the whole better it with gears. Ask anyone who has gone from bogging, not being able to cut a good 60' on 28" slicks to 26" slicks, it's a world of a difference.

[sr71bb]

Well maybe my math is messed up or something but going from 20 inch wheels to 18 inch wheels LOWERS the car only 1 inch CLOSER to the ground assuming the height of the sidewall on the tire are the same My 2010 has a wheel tire combination that is roughly 28.58 inches tall and my 1998 Camaro has a tire a wheel combination that is roughly 26.58 inches tall. So if I could put my 1998 wheels on my 2010, then it would lower the car ONLY ONE inch to the ground because the other inch is results in a one inch bigger GAP between the TOP of the wheel/tire and the fenderwell.

Where this REALLY comes into play is that if I put 18's on my BMR Lowered 2010 that NOW has a relatively small gap ABOVE the tire to the fenderwell, THAT NOW goes back again to an SUV type gap if I put 18's on. So with a lowered car and 18's, I will have a stock size gap above the tire to the wheelwell. I can take up some of that gap by using a taller tire as SUX2BU suggests.

Now personally I think it is a mistake to go to 19 inch wheels because that basically is an odd size and there are VERY few tires available in that size (translation: EXPENSIVE). The 18 inch wheels however offer many more options from the standpoint of tires. If it were me I would run a 305 35 18 tire like a NITTO 555R because it's overall diameter is 26.42. You would also want to run a front tire combination that is within a half inch in overall diameter of 26.42. A second option would be to run a 305 40 18 with an OD of 27.72.

[SUX2BU]

Originally Posted by sr71bb

Well maybe my math is messed up or something but going from 20 inch wheels to 18 inch wheels LOWERS the car only 1 inch CLOSER to the ground assuming the height of the sidewall on the tire are the same My 2010 has a wheel tire combination that is roughly 28.7 inches tall and my 1998 Camaro has a tire a wheel combination that is roughly 26.7 inches tall. So if I could put my 1998 wheels on my 2010, then it would lower the car ONLY ONE inch to the ground because the other inch is results in a one inch bigger GAP between the TOP of the wheel/tire and the fenderwell.

Where this REALLY comes into play is that if I put 18's on my BMR Lowered 2010 that NOW has a relatively small gap ABOVE the tire to the fenderwell, THAT NOW goes back again to an SUV type gap if I put 18's on. So with a lowered car and 18's, I will have a stock size gap above the tire to the wheelwell. I can take up some of that gap by using a taller tire as SUX2BU suggests.

Your math is right, but i am not using the same sidewall height as stock. Stock sidewall height is 4.3" front and rear, with the 18" tires i am looking at tires with the sidewall height of 4.5" front and 4.8" rear.

P.S. Are you Brian P? The screen name looks familiar.

[sr71bb]

Sounds like a good plan to use the higher height sidewalls.

I am the PAPA bear (Greg P). He is SR71BBJR!!! LOL

BTW, I think the 18 inch wheel swapout could maybe be the best bang for the buck for performance especially since a stock geared Camaro couldn't pull a fat girl off a tricycle!!! As a matter of fact my best friend got rid of his 2010 EARLY last year after a few months because he didn't think it performed like it should. He war right too, if you are used to VERY fast street cars, then a stock camaro is dissappointing for sure.

That 98 I had with 4.30 gears and 26.5 OD tires would rip your heart out compared to my 2010 and at 450 RWHP, the 98 is considerably quicker and it has 50 HP LESS than my 2010. Of course, the 2010 weighs 500 pounds more!!!! All that being said however, the 5th GEN Camaros have GREAT potential.

The OTHER thing I noticed about the 2010 is that it wears out tires FASTER. I could get 9-10K out of the 555R's on my 98 and my 2010 goes maybe 6500 miles on same tire.

[SUX2BU]

Originally Posted by sr71bb

I am the PAPA bear. He is SR71BBJR!!! LOL

BTW, I think the 18 inch wheel swapout couild maybe be the best bang for the buck for performance especially since a stock geared Camaro couldn't pull a fat girl off a tricycle!!!

Oh, yeah. I think i met you a couple times.

Yeah, these cars are pigs and mine will be 250 lbs heavier than the coupes. So if i can get lose any weight with out pulling stuff out, I'm all for it. Especially rotating mass, I forgot how much it was but something like 1 to 4 or something like that, so if you take the 43 lbs I'm losing from going to 18's (that's just the weight difference in wheels, I'm not sure how much my 18" tires weigh but being wider and shorter than stock i assume they will be pretty close) it's kind of like losing 172 lbs of dead weight. Of course this "formula" isn't linear like that, it depends on a lot of physics, but you get the idea.

[SUX2BU]

As far as tire wear goes, I heard the stock Pirellis are horrible.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by SUX2BU

How do you figure? The shorter tires i am looking at are only 1.7" shorter up front and 1.1" shorter out back. So going from stock to the 18's with lower profile tires will only drop the car .55" up front and .85" inches out back. I doubt you can even notice something that small.

Are you thinking that going from 20" to 18" wheels will lower your car 2"? Ride height doesn't matter one bit what wheels you have, it's all about the tire diameter.

I was thinking you were going to go low like the Pedder's car. Something else to keep in mind is if you want to lower the car to eliminate wheel gap, a low profile tire on a smaller rim makes it nearly impossible to lower the car enough to get rid of the gap because your car will be too low to the ground for street use.

Smaller wheel and low profile tire means bigger wheel gap than stock. If you've already dropped close to 2" just because of wheels, trying to lower it another 2" to eliminate the gap lowers the car too much. I have 19's on mine and I lowered it 1.5" with coilovers and I wouldn't want it any lower; as it is I sometimes scrape on speed bumps in parking lots.

[M6HuggerSS]

Originally Posted by SUX2BU

The rear of this car has the 18x11 wheels i am getting. This car is the exact reason i wanted 18's!

those wheels look great!
are you sure those are 18's?

anyone know what tire size that is?

[M6HuggerSS]

im really starting to like this idea of useing 18's...
id still like to see more pics of others who have taken this same path...
an 18" wheel with a 28" tire sounds like it might look odd... thats a 5" sidewall!

to keep the same stock 4.25" side wall, that would require a 26.5" tire on an 18" wheel. wonder how that would look? im sure better if the car was dropped 1.25"

between the Nitto NT05 and NT05R, there are several sizes that may work.

[SUX2BU]

Originally Posted by Doc

I was thinking you were going to go low like the Pedder's car. Something else to keep in mind is if you want to lower the car to eliminate wheel gap, a low profile tire on a smaller rim makes it nearly impossible to lower the car enough to get rid of the gap because your car will be too low to the ground for street use.

Smaller wheel and low profile tire means bigger wheel gap than stock. If you've already dropped close to 2" just because of wheels, trying to lower it another 2" to eliminate the gap lowers the car too much. I have 19's on mine and I lowered it 1.5" with coilovers and I wouldn't want it any lower; as it is I sometimes scrape on speed bumps in parking lots.

How are you getting 2" lower just from wheels? You would have to have 24.7" tall tires to lower your car 2" with different tire/wheel set up. You would have to have something ridiculously small like a 285/30 18 wheel and tire combo.

Originally Posted by M6HuggerSS

those wheels look great!
are you sure those are 18's?

anyone know what tire size that is?

They are 315/40 18
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125456

Originally Posted by M6HuggerSS

im really starting to like this idea of useing 18's...
id still like to see more pics of others who have taken this same path...
an 18" wheel with a 28" tire sounds like it might look odd... thats a 5" sidewall!

to keep the same stock 4.25" side wall, that would require a 26.5" tire on an 18" wheel. wonder how that would look? im sure better if the car was dropped 1.25"

between the Nitto NT05 and NT05R, there are several sizes that may work.

Look at any stock LS V6 camaro they all come with 18" wheels and 28" wheels. So does the Hurst camaro i posted a picture of a few posts up.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by SUX2BU

How are you getting 2" lower just from wheels? You would have to have 24.7" tall tires to lower your car 2" with different tire/wheel set up. You would have to have something ridiculously small like a 285/30 18 wheel and tire combo.

Pedders was running 35 on the front and 30's in the back if I remember right; I was referring to that setup. On my setup the tire is 1" smaller in diameter than the stock wheel so it increased my wheel gap 1/2" and lowered my car 1/2". Lowering my car another 1.5" means overall it's lowered 2" which is the max I'd want to go for clearance underneath.