Club 80-90 Forums

Hi Guys,

Looking to put some larger tyres on my 14" steel wheels to give longer gears. Now that van is 1.9 its got more power and can manage motorway speeds so would be nice to do that more quietly as i only have 4 gears.

so who has done this and what results have you got, I did search but didnt see many direct experiences.

cheers

http://www.syncro.ca/tiresize/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

have you tried this.

dont go too long on the gears it will ruin the performance and economy.

I had not seen that before! Thanks for the tip!

doesn't look like I'm going to be able to knock much off anyway maybe a few hundred rpm?

anyone actually gone for it? was it / is it better?

cheers guys

I have changed my 185/70/14 to 205/70/16 . It is much quieter and will sit nicely at 60 . Fine on pull off and round town bu loaded up and on all the up hill stretches coming back from wales slowed me down to 40mph. So I will probably drop the profile and width down and bring the revs back up a little when I have worn the rubber out that is.

Note* longer gearing but keeping his 14 inch steelies.....

Thats a tall order considering the standard 185R14C tyres are already full '82' profile.
I guess the largest circumference on standard rims would be 205R14C as fitted to some LT's (VW did fit the 205/70R14 to Carats so 205's should be a possibility), any bigger circumference will require the use of 15 or 16inch rims.

Martin

As California Dreaming stated, you are limited with 14" rims.
I'm running 16" with 215/65 and my JX can handle it, went over the M62 (saddleworth) both ways in top at 60 mph.

Looked to same philosophy as you. I've upped mIne to 195*14 commercial tyres (on 1.6 CS i.e.. non turbo diesel) & it takes the edge off the "din" when cruisin' along.

It's completely fine on the flat, better downhill, worse uphill. Lower revs rather than better top speed.

Loading up/weight takes a bit more of a toll than before, but that's to be expected. Worthwhile swap in my opinion & wouldn't change back - Older Transit is 195*14 so reasonable prices.

**Bonus** - my speedo now reads bang on (per sat nav & road safety "smilies"), rather than a bit high as original. From memory gearing increase equivalent is about 3% (don't quote me on this). Would suggest you don't go jumping above this too much, unless you have large surplus of power as it wont pull lower down & you'll get fed up of using 2nd & 3rd rather than 3rd & top.

Hope this helps.