Advantages to square setup?

[mbesman]

Hi all,
What are the pros or cons to having a square tire/rim setup as opposed to a staggered setup. I already know about the rotation of tire advantage with a square setup but other than that. If the car came with staggered will anything be affected by a square setup? Any thoughts on pros or cons would be appreciated.

[SS 310H55A]

Staggered is objectively better looking and more of an iconic muscle car look. Square will put more tire on the pavement since you’re not running a skinnier tire on the front. More tire on the pavement equates to better grip when carving corners. If that’s not your thing, just stick with staggered.

[mbesman]

Yeah..I like the staggered look. I'm not into tracking so if rotation is the only clear pro for square I think I'll stick with staggered. THanks.

[bkevind]

Aside from what you mentioned...
Theoretically:
-Less understeer / more front end grip
-Potentially less front responsiveness (really depends on the tire, but it will feel different)
-Change in chassis dynamics

I'm in it for more grip. 305/30-19 squar, will go bigger square when I sort out the best way.

You can tune some of the chassis behavior with suspension tweaks (height, compression/rebound, spring rate, adjustable / different size antisway bars)

Mine was square to begin with, 285's on the 1LE, but with more stretch in the rear so not exactly square behavior.

IMO if you're a corner carver / road course person - these cars really need as much tire as you can fit. 325's would be nice all around

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by mbesman

Hi all,
What are the pros or cons to having a square tire/rim setup as opposed to a staggered setup. I already know about the rotation of tire advantage with a square setup but other than that. If the car came with staggered will anything be affected by a square setup? Any thoughts on pros or cons would be appreciated.

There is a rough correlation between tire width and grip, and this applies in both the fore-aft and lateral directions.

Under braking, you're demanding a lot more from the front tires than from the rear tires, so if your driving includes a lot of really heavy braking from high speeds, you'll want more front tire rather than less.

When you put a front-heavy car into a corner, the front tires are carrying more than half of the car weight. Plus they're the tires that actually get the turning started. Once again, you're demanding more from the front tires.

It's only during acceleration that you start needing more rear tire than front tire. In more powerful cars - perhaps "torquier" would be better - this can start well before you've got the car straightened out in a turn. A little extra cushion against power-driven oversteer is your friend, and it's arguably better to get this by making the rear tires wider than the front tires narrower.

Since the original muscle cars were only good at straight line acceleration and marginal at best about the other two, and because most people are more familiar with them than with cars built for road-racing, that's where popularity of staggered arrangements comes from. Most people are still influenced more by drag racing, and running hard in straight lines still is the first aspect of performance driving that people come to understand or get any good at.


No flame intended, but from a hard-core corner-carving point of view a "square" or "almost square" arrangement can actually be the better-looking because it promises to be better at a wider variety of driving situations. Maybe there's a bit of "insider knowledge" going on as well - you know it's been done that way because there was more than just one performance reason in mind.


Norm

[STALKER]

I went with a square set-up, but if you are in it for looks, go staggered IMO. I wanted more rubber on the ground.

[Welker2]

A square set up is best for handling curves at high speeds, like in auto crossing, road and track racing and mountain roads. The staggered set up is best for straight line, drag racing .. and it looks better.

[Sir Nuke]

and along with the things the others have already mentioned....a squared set-up allow you to rotate the tires to even out tire ware.....where as in a staggered set-up you can't and you will typically ware the rears at about a 2 to 1 ratio (you will buy/use 2 sets of rears to every 1 set of fronts).

[mbesman]

Originally Posted by Sir Nuke

and along with the things the others have already mentioned....a squared set-up allow you to rotate the tires to even out tire ware.....where as in a staggered set-up you can't and you will typically ware the rears at about a 2 to 1 ratio (you will buy/use 2 sets of rears to every 1 set of fronts).

You are right on with this. I've had to replace my rears and my fronts were almost still new. I replaced all 4 corners but kept the old fronts as spares. I wondered why the huge difference in tread wear between front and back in a staggered setup. Now I know. Thanks

[Arogg]

My wheels are a square set of 20 x 10 but I staggered the tire sizes. I just like the look of the wider tires in the rear

[Rock-It Man]

For 99% of us, the only benefit of stagger is the looks.

Unless you track the car or drive foolishly on public roads, you won't know the difference.

So it would seem that the square setup is more practical due to rotation. I have too say though, that I never rotated my OEM P-Zeros, and got almost no feathering on the fronts over the life of the tires.

[qcman]

Originally Posted by Rock-It Man

For 99% of us, the only benefit of stagger is the looks.

Unless you track the car or drive foolishly on public roads, you won't know the difference.

So it would seem that the square setup is more practical due to rotation. I have too say though, that I never rotated my OEM P-Zeros, and got almost no feathering on the fronts over the life of the tires.

I like the staggered look better for sure. I have had issues with fronts getting some chop (outer edge feathering) that made them really loud. Almost made you think a wheel bearing was going out. Of course I couldn't rotate them properly which would have helped with that. I just make sure my car is kept aligned really well & that seems to help more than anything to avoid that so far.

[UBB]

do you road trip a lot? Going square allows you to carry a spare that will be worry free on all 4 corners

[Joecruiser]

Originally Posted by STALKER

I went with a square set-up, but if you are in it for looks, go staggered IMO. I wanted more rubber on the ground.

Interesting thread. Never really gave the topic much thought, only that IMO staggered looks better. Great analogy about old school muscle cars not need fronts.

Stalker, any pics of your square setup? My rims are 20X10s all around.
Square sounds nice now.