14's vs 15's

[quangsuke]

ive been driving my eg for a while and of thinking whether i should

a. replace my tyres on my 14's
b. buy 15's with new tyres

would handling be better if i went one or the other?
would it even matter?

please help.

[mugen_ctr]

go 15's for the better tire selections

[fullmetal]

i would go for 15s as you get better tyre choice

[lsvtec]

just go 15's

[quangsuke]

but for handling wise. which one would be better?
i understand you get ALOT more tyre choices and thats a good point, but have you guys personally driven on 14's.

i have never driven with 15's, my other eg is rocking 17's and my current one has 14's.

[yellows2k]

ran 14s on my first civic many years ago, running 15s on my eg5 now. if u get decent tyres, say high end yokos, goodyear, dunlop, then u wont notice much difference at all. basically boils down to appearance and choices

[mugen_ctr]

theres nothing wrong with 14's, from a performance p.o.v, its better, because theres less rolling resistance, and also that rim/tire choice is factory choice, so it must be that size for a reason...
Running on my stock 14's ages ago, the car felt light and nimble, steering was probs to light for my liking, not enough weight.... since swapping to 16's, it has made it alot better

[quangsuke]

thanks for the input guys. gonna replace my daily rims to 15's and try find semis for the 14's for track. honestly thanks guys =D

[mugen_ctr]

no prbs man, i dont think they make semi's that size id imagine, i think 15's is the smallest you can get, and that like 195/50R15 or so....
Oh btw, u are phongs mate yea? cant remeber, lol the guy who has red EK4 with wide 15's

[string]

There are R-compounds in 195/60/14 (R888 for example). 15" has much better selection of street tyres. If you've got two sets of rims, keep the 14's for daily driving due to the cheap cost of tyres.

Regardless, if your rims are only 6" wide, you'll notice a bigger performance difference going wider rather than larger diameter.

[quangsuke]

no prbs man, i dont think they make semi's that size id imagine, i think 15's is the smallest you can get, and that like 195/50R15 or so....
Oh btw, u are phongs mate yea? cant remeber, lol the guy who has red EK4 with wide 15's

yes i am =D

[quangsuke]

There are R-compounds in 195/60/14 (R888 for example). 15" has much better selection of street tyres. If you've got two sets of rims, keep the 14's for daily driving due to the cheap cost of tyres.

Regardless, if your rims are only 6" wide, you'll notice a bigger performance difference going wider rather than larger diameter.

i understand waht your saying but wouldn't it make more sense to use 14's for semis as i would change the rare tyre size less compared to daily?
or is it the other way around.....

[MM89]

if you're tracking and decide to go with bigger brakes, 14" will JUST fit on DC2/EK4 brakes and will not fit DC2R brakes. so that may be something to consider.

[mugen_ctr]

valid point there... and also, if you do go for 15's, make sure there correct offsets...

[quangsuke]

valid point there... and also, if you do go for 15's, make sure there correct offsets...

theres a correct offset?

[AE092]

You know what he means Quang; Good enough offset to fill the guards and clear the calipers :P

Also note with whats already been said about tyre selection but more grip does not come with more width, contrary to belief. More grip is from tyre compound, width will give a greater surface patch (Total Surface Area) for the tyre to work with. Oh yeh, I'll be listing two sets of 14's on eBay tonight :D

[Riced_Civic]

i reckon say 14 for street and 15 for track, but in seeing that its ur 1st time on track u dont really need to go for semis.
get as much out of the street tire 1st then when u can t beat ur PB on ur street tires then go for semis.

[quangsuke]

i reckon say 14 for street and 15 for track, but in seeing that its ur 1st time on track u dont really need to go for semis.
get as much out of the street tire 1st then when u can t beat ur PB on ur street tires then go for semis.

my street tyres atm are shocking. but plenty of tread but no grip. thats why i was planning on buying semis or street tyres.
but i would hate to wear out my new street tyres on first track day. if u get me.

[chargeR]

my street tyres atm are shocking. but plenty of tread but no grip. thats why i was planning on buying semis or street tyres.
but i would hate to wear out my new street tyres on first track day. if u get me.

Good street tyres will last well on track, I recently drove all the way to Sydney for Superlap, ran both days on the track, drove back to Winton, ran a couple of sessions there, and back home again and my Dunlop Z1s are still pretty new. Any tyre you use is going to wear out, and I often think that it is false economy for many occasional trackers to get a dedicated set of track wheels and tyres to "save" their everyday street tyres.

[mugen_ctr]

Get good street tires, and ur set... no need for semi's...but if you do get new tires, jus dont get Bf Goodrich, lol, they grip incredibly, but daym, they dont last very long, very soft rubber compound, something like Bridgestone, falken etc, very well known brands will be more than enough for what your asking, and anyways, semi's do have a life span, so be weary of it, you cant jus leave them siting in the garage for long periods....

Whats your budget anyways?

[vtecing]

re001 are available for 14". Ive had 14" and 15" both with re001 and there isnt much difference. 15" might be SLIGHTLY better on the track because of less movement of the sidewalls

[quangsuke]

yeah thats what i was considering. get bigger tyres to remove the sidewall problem.
let u know what i find. T1R's are looking nice.

[vtecing]

T1Rs are rubbish. go re001

[quangsuke]

T1Rs are rubbish. go re001

hey can you explain a tad more. heard T1R life span is much longer then re001

[vtecing]

cant vouch for life span of the T1R as they weren't on my car long enough because they were rubbish. I NEVER lost traction with the re001 but i hardly ever had grip witht the T1R. If i planted it mid corner the inside wheel would just light up. I have re001s on both of my cars, one set are 18 months old and still look new

[AE092]

Quang, remember that Thai and my friend, Viet raced on the RE001's that day and they said it was highly over-rated. I've suggested to my other friend with the EG to run Kumho KU36s - 205/50/15 is there smallest size. I've raced on them at 6 track days and still managed some 20,000 odd road K's out of them. Food for thought.

[yellows2k]

Price on the 15" kumho? I'll be needing some in thefutute, running falken rt612 ATM, decent tyres

[quangsuke]

should be $150 for 195/50/15 ku36

[yellows2k]

After 205, any price on that size?

[broady]

Not sure if you want to follow in my footsteps but I just got a set of 14s for street, going to stay with 15s for the track. However they came with Bridgestone RE11. Very good tyre.

15s should handle better with less sidewall flex but remember that 15s will be heavier. Remember all the weight of a rim is on the outside, so even at the same total weight, a bigger rim will have more rotational mass. I used to have heavy 16s and moving down to the 15s made a huge difference to handling. However outright grip is worse.

I have never driven on 14" RE001 but have heard reports that the sidewall is very squishy. I suppose if you get 14" semis this won't be as bad, also depending on tyre size/rim width.

But again, tyre selection in 15s is very good. I'd be happy with something like the Dunlop Star Spec or even RE001 if it's just for the street. I wouldn't consider tracking on 14s... On the track you want grip, right?

[liberx]

The shorter sidewalls on a good quality 15" tyre will give sharper steering response, at reasonable cost.

Good 14"s will still give good grip and outright road holding, but won't be quite s sharp on change of direction. I'm not even sure that the tyres will be much cheaper being not as popular (popular = cheaper).

[crx51]

Gday mate,
I have had two ED9 Crx's, which are a somewhat similar car to your EG. Similar size, similar suspension geometry/wheelbase/track and weight etc

I've driven on the stock 14s on both cars, then 16s on one crx and 15s on the other. My thoughts are -

Stock 14s 185/60/14- In both circumstances they were below average quality tyre manufacturers on both my cars sets of 14s (previous owners didn't know their tyres). I found both cars a bit skittish on 14s. They moved around on them a fair bit and I spun both cars without doing anything particularly crazy, bit of dust on the road and a bit too much lift off on the accelerator. I did find that on 14s the steering was very light though and the car felt agile and light on its feet and it was adjustable if you were quick enough to catch it, but didn't have much grip. Now obviously with better 14inch tyres then there would be a significant difference, but with more grip you'll flex the sidewall more as well - which you will feel once you've got that grip there and it may annoy you.

16s 205/45/16 - These are what I went for on my first CRX as my upgrade. First thing I noticed was that the car was slower. There was less of a kick at 5000rpm than there was with the 14s. These were a 7spoke wheel and not a particularly heavy design (no chrome or any of that) but they definitely just softened the engine a little. Next thing I noticed was that it wanted to follow corrugations more and it was a fair bit rougher through the wheel, as expected. In terms of just outright grip they were superb. I couldn't get the car to lose grip, it would roll on its suspension but never broke traction. The steering was a lot heavier though and the car never felt anywhere near as agile and it wasn't adjustable at all which made it feel like a bigger heavier car than it was and it didn't feel as fun to drive, but it did feel safe.

15s 195/50/15 - Having experienced 16s I knew I wouldn't get them again so I opted for 15s on my second CRX. These felt the perfect compromise. There was heaps of grip yet it still felt like you could adjust it slightly on the limit but have a safety margin there to catch you. It also didn't seem to slow the car down either like the 16s did. The grip wasn't as high on these as there was on the 16s but it still felt fun and light and nimble. The 16s just felt a size too big and made the car feel heavy. The 15s seemed to have 95% of the benefits of the 16s without any real downfall..

Hope this helps somewhat.

Kind Regards