245's vs 235's

[brrgy]

I have made my decision on tire mfg as I'm going with the Avon CR6ZZ tires. The only question is the front tire size. Roger Kraus racing says that the sell the 245/60/15 for the front to factory five owners. It would be equivalent to the bfg 245 size. Should I be comfortable with this tire size recommendation from Roger Kraus racing. I'd appreciate more opinions on guys who have the 245's on their car if they are happy.
Thank you very much!!!

[Gilmore]

245's fill out the wheel well much better than 235's.

[Gumball]

Here are a few more pics of my car. As mentioned in the earlier thread, I originally purchased 275s for the rear and 245s for the front on my Mk3.1 (which has the wider rear fenders versus the earlier Mk3 cars). The 275s really filled the rear wheel wells, but to my eyes didn't fit with my old-school build.... they just looked too fat on the car. The 245s fit on the FFR 15" wheels really well, but on the front, they stuck out from under the flares by quite a bit. A little more negative camber took care of some of it, but I wasn't happy with the look, so I went all the way down to 225s for the front and I'm really happy.

I should mention, though, that the tire shop had a difficult time getting the 225s to seat as they are at the far end of the narrow spectrum based on the wheel width.

Pic of the 275s from the rear.....



Pic of the 245 poking out from under the front flare - although this is at droop, so somewhat exaggerated.....



Different view of the car on the 245/225 combo.....



Good pic showing how the 225s fit on the front, due to the white gravel dust that helps show the full tread width area....

[CraigS]

Needing to go to 225s on the front, I would be looking at the back spacing of your wheels.

[Gumball]

Needing to go to 225s on the front, I would be looking at the back spacing of your wheels.

Standard FFR 15" Halibrand-style wheels on '94 spindles. Nothing out of the ordinary in the set-up. Running about -1* or so of camber, as it's just a street car.

I also think that the Avon tires have a large section width for their sizes - the sidewalls have more of a bias-ply style bulge rather than the flatter look of a radial sidewall. That could be part of the issue. In my experience, they seem to be chunkier than comparably sized modern radials.

EDIT / Adding - I should also mention that I originally had the FFR 17" wheels on my car with 245s on the front and 315s on the rear with no fitment problems.

[mia65cobra]

Personally, I will always go with the lighter tire choice for a street setup. Since I'm not looking to extract every last drop of performance from the setup on the street might as well reduce the unsprung weight if possible.

[brrgy]

Thanks for the input guys!

[Frank Messina]

Craig, Avon doesn't offer a 235 60 so 225 60 is the next best thing if you're set on sticking with Avon. Juggling tire sizes to get the right fit is enough to make you nuts.

As an afterthought maybe the answer is to switch to pin drive width lower control arms and use a wheel spacer as necessary to position the tire when running bolt on wheels.

Frank

[Jeff Kleiner]

The front wheel openings are tightened up considerably on the Mk4 vs Mk3 and earlier. To fit 235/60-15 you have to be sure to trim back the returns; 245s exacerbate the situation. I've fielded calls and messages from guys who ran into body interference when trying to use a 245/60-15 on the front of Mk4s.

Beware...

Jeff