whealy

So I’m looking into wheels and have been thinking about staggering the width of the front and the back to allow me to make the back tire wider. My question is, will this cause any issues with the AWD system? Obviously different width tires will have some variation in perimeter (i.e. travel at different rates) causing some variations in rotation speed on between the axels. This type of a setup isn’t a huge deal to me as it’s tough even finding wheels that have multiple width’s that I’m interested in. But before I hang on the staggered approach I thought I would ask.

TIA

Jay10Ralliart

iTrader: (4)

No on the staggered wheels...it will mess with the awd!!

EricJ@AMS

iTrader: (1)

If you find staggered tires with a roll out very very close to each other, it shouldn't cause any problems with the awd system.

It kind of goes against the balance of the car though. It will make it understeer even worse than it already does.

jcm308

Can anyone answer why staggered fitment on the RA/Evo is a bad idea when high end sports cars (Porsche, Lambo etc) come like this from factory and they're AWD too???????

deadring

Factory offset is accounted for in factory driveline equipment?
the wider the offset, the lesser the split between an LSD (for a single axle)
the wider the offset between the two axles (front and back), the more bias the split will be from the center diff during a turn? (not sure bias which way.)
Science!

mikesim

exactly. just looked it up: 05 330xi 62/38 and gallardo 70/30. so more power to the rear wheels all the time.

RGRA

...so along the same lines...
One would have the same issue with different size wheel spacers right? I was thinking of having 15-20MM in the rear, but only 10mm spacers up front. Roll out would be the same obviously, and I didn't think that the 1/3" +/- would have that much of an effect on steering...but I guess I was wrong??

mikesim

different track width (distance between the centre of the left tire and the right tire) shouldn't affect anything.

velocityhead

iTrader: (3)

Uhhh no, don't run a staggered setup with an AWD car.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=18

When using different wheels on the front/back, if you're careful with your tire selection, you can get the overall diameters pretty close. That said, it would be almost impossible to get them to match exactly. The reason this is a bad idea is the same reason you should replace all 4 tires at one time, and not just the front or back sets.

mikesim

are you replying to the OP or me? the guy i was replying to is just asking about running a spacer in the back with same wheels on all 4 corners. that setup should be fine. plenty of people are running spacers in the back to make the rears as flush as the front. i'm running 5mm spacers myself.

velocityhead

iTrader: (3)

Replying to the OP

Widening the track probably shouldn't affect anything like you said, but I'd rather err on the side of caution.

RGRA

Thanks mikesim, thats what I thought. Eric's comment about understeer seems credible, but I don't know how great the degree of understeer would be increased, I can't imagine much.

...and my apologies to the OP for thread jackin' this a bit..

EricJ@AMS

iTrader: (1)

The understeer would only be noticeable when the car is pushed to the limits of adhesion.

Bo0yaka

Do some google searching on audis with staggered setups, those guys love that stuff and they make it work =)

You can try and make them match using something like this. http://tires.tirerack.com/tires/Tire...r%20Calculator

mikesim

like Eric mentioned, if the runout is close enough, you could probably stagger wheel width, but you'd need to run the same tires front and back, like 235/40r18 on 18x8 in front and the same on an 18x9 on the rear.