New Wheels & Rims Chat 1998 1999 2000 2001 CG Accord Coupe

[Mazda Man]

Stu advises that they shouldn't affect the speedo much either so happy days. Next thing I must do is give him a proper wax before the nasty white stuff arrives....and get my rubbers well lubricated too!

[Cryistic]

Sorry to be disenting voice here but I think the Mazda wheels dont look as good as the orginal honda 5 spokes, the arch gaps look the same as well, which they will be as the rolling circumfrence will be the same.

I can see the appeal of a set of Civic Type R, Accord type R, Pentas or Epsilons fitted to a coupe as they are Honda wheels and they tie into a Honda styling ethos. To me the Mazda wheels look to new/modern to suit the car, but as long as your happy that the main thing. 

Has it compromised the ride going down to a lower profile wheel?

[Laird_Scooby]

6 hours ago, Cryistic said:

Sorry to be disenting voice here but I think the Mazda wheels dont look as good as the orginal honda 5 spokes, the arch gaps look the same as well, which they will be as the rolling circumfrence will be the same.

I can see the appeal of a set of Civic Type R, Accord type R, Pentas or Epsilons fitted to a coupe as they are Honda wheels and they tie into a Honda styling ethos. To me the Mazda wheels look to new/modern to suit the car, but as long as your happy that the main thing. 

Has it compromised the ride going down to a lower profile wheel?

The big problem with wheels regardless of size is they are very much a personal thing Richie. It took me a long time to get my head round "wheels filling the arches" for exactly the reason you cite - the rolling radius/circumference will be the same with the correct tyre choice. It's all down to how you see it physically. The 18" wheels take up a greater percentage of the black hole that is the arches so appear to fill the arches better, despite the gap between the tyre and the arch remaining the same.

I think they look good but we're down to the personal taste thing again. Also along similar lines, wheels from the same manufacturer may look well, just wrong on a different model. The other side of that is that unless you're going for a retro look, wheels that are more modern is generally the way to go to give your chariot a "fresh, new look". For example, on the 800 series, the original Mk1 Vitesse had Roversport 5 spokes, as fitted to the car that Tony Pond broke records with on the Isle of Man and also the original 820 Turbo more commonly known as the Tickford. Fit a set of those on the Mk2 800 and they don't look good at all but fit them on a Mk1 and they still look good.

That's part of the reason the Volvo BBS "Crater" alloys don't look out of place on my coupé - Rover and latterly MG-Rover fitted similar wheels to later 25/45/75 models, most people assume (wrongly, obviously!) that i just used a set of wheels from one of those models. Same goes for the Teleston alloys i've fitted to the Sterling aka Project Galactic Dawn :

Some may love them, others may loathe them but they are slightly more modern while not IMHO looking out of place. The point here is they come from a car not made until 1998-2002 so are much more modern than the 800 - production stopped in 1998/99.

Bottom line is as long as Geoff likes his new wheels and doesn't need to book a course of treatment with his local chiropractor then it's all good.

[Mazda Man]

http://www.willtheyfit.com/index.php?width=205&aspect=55&diameter=16&wheelwidth=6.5&offset=40&width2=225&aspect2=45&wheel_size=18&wheel_width=9-5&offset2=20#isPage=1

Interesting.  So my speedo will be showing low speed than I'll actually be doing.  Good job I've bought a GPS head up display, I'll start a thread when I get it.  Regarding the ride, I admit, it's a bit harsher than the previous wheels but hey, they still look cool and suit the car I think.  There's also more road noise I've noticed, presumably due to the wider tyres?

FROM: 205/55/R16

TO: 225/45/ZR18

 

[Laird_Scooby]

Quite often speedos read fast anyway Geoff, up to 10% fast in fact. As such you may find the new bigger tyres actually correct the speedo. According to an old sat-nav i had and also a speedo app on my phone, my Sterling speedo is accurate with new-ish tyres and my coupé reads a little high (about 2mph at 70) even with new tyres.

As for the road noise, there are two reasons - one as you rightly summise, you have wider tyres. Second you've decreased the aspect ratio from 55 to 44 so reducing the amount of rubber between road and wheel. Again this contributes to the harsher ride.

As long as you're happy and can live with the down sides or not view them as down sides, it's all good!

[AhsyV6]

Geoff, when you're ready to change the tyres you might want to consider Dunlop Sport Maxx. Our coupes are not the quietest anyway so I invested in these tyres and I could not believe the difference in sound. 

The other thing that Rob did on his which is duplicated on yours is that he wrapped them with 45's as opposed to 40's so that he could fill the gap a bit more. This also has a very slight impact on your speedo but which way I'm not sure.

[Laird_Scooby]

The tyre diameter will be bigger with 45s than 40s Ahsy - the aspect ratio as it's called is a percentage of the width so a 40 series tyre is 40% of the width  in sidewall height. In other words, on a tyre 250mm wide with a 40% aspect ratio the sidewalls will be 100mm tall.

Checking out the diameter of a 225/40/18 (using the e-tyres calculator) shows it is 637mm so .079% or 5mm bigger than the 205/55/16 or 0.47% or 3mm bigger than a 195/65/15 so pretty close!

[AhsyV6]

As Dave said!!! 

[Mazda Man]

No idea what David just said but sounds coolio. 

[Mangoman]

Hi chaps...... How are we this lovely bright morning? (NOT)!

Here is another Tyre Size Calculator which I use. https://tiresize.com/comparison/ 

My wheels are fitted with 235/40x18's which make them 2% or 1/2 inch bigger in diameter! Way too much, you should keep withing 1% max either way.

I will be fitting 225/40x18's soon which bring it within limits, (0.8%). And that is not the only reason, the tyres on there, although well treaded are real ditch-finders! Also three differing brands! 2 Nankangs on the front and some even more dubious one on the rear, one a Impetus(???) and the other something called a Fullway...????!!!!

In my opinion all a load of you know what! I'm going to be fitting either Uniroyal RS3's or my personal favourite, Nokian Z-Lines...

[Laird_Scooby]

Lovely and bright here Bill! Probably not as warm though.........!

I've heard of all those makes, usually in the same breath as "Teflon-coated Chinese ditchfinders".

When you say the 235/40/18s are 2% bigger, what are they bigger than? They come out as 0.8% bigger than a 205/55/16 which is the OE size and in turn is 2mm smaller than the 195/65/15 fitted to models with 15" wheels.

All that said, i suppose a Fullway is twice as good as a Halfway............

[Mangoman]

HI Dave.

If you look at the Tyre Size Calculator you'll see where I got those figures from.

I was referring to the total Diameter of the different size tyres compared to 205/55x16's 

Also I forgot to add that according to my Garmin Satnav, with the 235's fitted when my Speedo is registering 70mph my Satnav is showing 71mph... So I reckon with 225's the Speedo will show slightly over - which is a good thing!

So just be careful what tyre sizes you fit. Always check it against a good Satnav..

[Laird_Scooby]

That was what i compared them to Bill, couldn't see a figure of 2% anywhere? I'll double-check in case i hit the wrong digit and put in a 205/40/18 or something silly. The base figure i always compare to is 195/65/15 anyway as that's what i think Honda used as the original tyre before it dawned on them to fit 16" wheels. Going further back in time, i think (Stu might remember better than me) they were 195/70/14 on the original Legend and/or Accord of the same time.

Fairly sure it was about then they changed to electronic speedos and would probably have used the same sensors and/or calibration for most models from then on, even if the speedo heads looked different the mechanism is probably the same inside. That's why i tend to use the 195/65/15 as the datum tyre to compare the others to.

[Mazda Man]

Here's a side pic of Purple's new wheels.....just before he didn't start due to kaput fuel relay.    Nice.  

[Laird_Scooby]

Maybe he doesn't like his new wheels Geoff?

[Mazda Man]

He loves his wheels Dave, he told me.  Having had a GPS HUD the speedo is definitely out by about 5mph I reckon. 

[Laird_Scooby]

That's good news Geoff!

When you say the speedo is 5mph out, at what speed and is it slow or fast?

[Mangoman]

Speedometers are usually set to over-read by about 10%, so the speed differential changes at differing speeds. Whereas, just as long as you have the correct size wheels and tyres, a reading from the wheel speed sensor will be just about correct as it is only the actual speedometer that is calibrated to over-read.

[Laird_Scooby]

Very true Bill! Something that hasn't been mentioned is the tread depth. When new, most tyres have a tread depth of 8mm so they add 16mm on to the overall diameter. I've never fathomed whether this is taken into account during manufacture so that a brand new tyre is the correct diameter or if they make the new ones a little bit over so they're the right diameter when they're part worn with 4-5mm tread left or what.

Something i do know though is with new tyres on, my Sterling speedo is pretty accurate all the way up to licence losing speeds, my coupé reads 70mph at a GPS correct 67mph and as the tyres wear, obviously the speedos begin to read a little more over whatever speed i'm doing.

If the tyres are under-size then the speedo will read optimistically over all the time, even when the tyres are new. You'll also use more fuel even if the recorded miles against fuel used say different as a 10 mile journey will now show up as 11 miles or something along those lines.

[Mazda Man]

The speedo is showing 35 say when according to the GPS, I'm doing 39 or 40.  

[Laird_Scooby]

Something wrong somewhere Geoff! With those tyres it should be the other way round, thre GPS showing 35 when the speedo says 39-40.

[hughezee]

The stock size vs new size is 5% ish means it will read slower, so 60 mph on the speedo, your actual speed will be 63 mph 

[Laird_Scooby]

Actually, ignore my comment above! Brain cell had gone walkabout and was thinking of 215/40/17s which of course are smaller so the speedo would over-read.

However, 215/40/18s are within a gnats whisker of 205/55/16 so would be more accurate but in the meantime i think i'd rely on the GPS, especially when there are GATSOs or similar around!

[Mangoman]

What tyres did you fit Geoff? And sadly those alloys look a bit graunched....

Sorry, I just had to make sure of the standard size being 205/55x16 (D=24.9")  - Yes, 225/45x18's (D=26") are about 1.1" bigger in diameter! And I thought mine were big at 235/40x18 (D=25.4") at .5" bigger....

[Mazda Man]

I know Bill, the plan is to have a go in the summer and tidy them up a bit. I've no idea regarding the size, I just told the guy 225/45/ZR18 which are the same as the tyres that were on it.  They look coolio on the car Bill, just the right size.  They're nice rims so worth the effort but don't really want to mess around in this cold weather, drying the lacquer etc.

Correct Dave, I will get the rears done next month.  Made a world of difference with the handling, no pulling now to the left.  Before they even started they asked me to put the steering wheel dead straight and he then put a laser thingy contraption on top of the wheel which presumably measures the tracking.  After checking a chart on the wall, he said something like the tolerance is 2 (whatever two means) and mine were less than one so all good.