Thinking of fitting smaller lower profile tyres ...

[baggister]

I'm toying with the idea of changing my 195/50R16 to 195/45R16 or maybe even 195/40R16.

And also lowering it a tad via Mountune.

I'm doing this because I think the gears are too tall, I spend all day in first gear.

Also, the car is quite happy in 4th gear at 70mph, so may as well make it 5th at 70.

With the lower profile tyres, plus the lowered chassis, the handling will be even better.

Anyone see any flaws in my madness?

 

 

[captpicard]

yes, changing the profile of your standard tyres without changing the size of your alloys will throw your speedo out..

[Gizza11]

54 minutes ago, baggister said:

Anyone see any flaws in my madness?

Well some if you do that the rolling radius of the wheels will be wrong therefore your speedo will not reflect your correct road speed. The way round it is to fit bigger rims as well for example if you had 17" rims you would need 18" rims with the low profile tyres and that defeats the object of what you want to do as effectively you have the same as you started with.A change of gear box with different ratios would work well but then drivability comes in.Years ago I used to fit 5 speeds into a ford that had 4  as standard the rear axel ratio was not changed .that ment it was like poo of a shovel from 0 to 60 but dead after that but  with a rear axel ratio change it was then O.K  normal only with 5 instead of 4.I know what you mean though and this is why some fit a mondeo gear box in to the mk2 Focus ST as they think the ST is to short ratio as they want a slightly  longer ratio box. There may be a way to reprogram the speedo  speed sensor  or change it out to a different car but I don't know about that( years ago we just changed a little worm  gear in the gearbox to suit)

 

1 hour ago, baggister said:

With the lower profile tyres, plus the lowered chassis, the handling will be even better

Yep I agree with that

[ThaiFiesta]

10 minutes ago, captpicard said:

yes, changing the profile of your standard tyres without changing the size of your alloys will throw your speedo out..

You can change this using Forscan but I'm not sure the limits on the changes

[baggister]

Ok guys, thanks v much