16 or 17

[rip]

was wondering what are the benefits of 16's over 17's? Any? I know the unsprung wieght of 16's is less. Handling the same?

Was thinking of using still a low profile tire, but do they look as nice as 17's under the fenders, or are 16's with low profiles too small?

thanks
rip

[Vincent]

the wheel wells on a bug are huge! 17's fill it up more I am going with 18's on my project.

[zen]

you got the basics of unsprung weight. using 16's with low profile tires is going to hose your gear ratio though and have you turning higher RPMs at lower speeds. 16's are great for autocrossing, etc but go with 17's for street for looks if nothing else. then again, you find some nice 16 Fuchs and that is a different story.

[beetle1303]

According to what Zen said about the tire's dimension use the following calculator www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html . I know its from the miata forum, but it still tells you what you ask it... LOL

[dbcflash]

The way I see it, the only performance based reason for increasing the wheel size would be to allow for larger brakes.

[oasis]

Some 17s are lighter than some 16s. (I don't know what "unsprung weight" means, so if there's a difference beween that and plopping wheels on a scale, I'm talking about the latter.)

I'm going with 16s. I think they'll have 45- or 50-series tires on it. I cannot imagine going with a lower profile tire would be beneficial in 99% of my driving. I can imagine the rougher ride of 17s having ill effects on the car's components -- or my components.

As for brakes, GTI brakes will work with 16s. Anything larger than that on a 1900-pound car has got to be overkill.

Larger wheels and brakes do increase the wow factor -- at least with me it does. There are just so many different road types where I live, I can't have the ow factor surpassing the wow factor, especially with minimal (at best) benefits.