Ride quality with bigger wheels

[ashtray1]

Hi all

I will be changing the wheels on my ve sv6 soon to either 20 or 22 inch (probably 22 inch throwbacks or dirty dogs). I was wondering what peoples opinions are on ride quality after changing to a bigger rim.

I will be putting adjustable coilovers in at the same time. I am hoping to get as close to a stock ride feel as possible, if that is possible.

Thanks in advance.

[Rogues]

I think you are going to put up with a lot of discomfort in ride for the sake of the 'look', feeling every jarring bump in the road.
.......and your passengers, especially the girls will probably be thinking 'what a dog'
JMO

[Wonky]

My VE on 20s rides about the same as my VZ on 18s did.

[EXCESSV]

my personal view is 22" is too big for ride quality...look good but not for the bad ride quality.

and using the coilovers to counteract the the harshness in the ride goes against the reasoning of coilovers.

u soften the coilovers if they are ajustable on the shocks....and the car handles like a boat...firm them up and the car handles like a go kart...point in the direction u wanna turn and it goes there...which i love about my coilovers

go 20" would my point of view

[ashtray1]

Thanks for the responses. The reason i like the 22's is that they fill the huge guards nicely and for ground clearance. ??? you may ask

Well i used to have a vx equipe on 18's and when i lowered it on lovells superlows if i hit a had passengers in the back i would scrape on speed bumps and also on big bumps in the road. Also made the ride quality shite (felt every bump in the road)

As i want to lower it to the top of the tyre front and back (maybe a little more in the back) with 20's on the VE i feel that i would have the same issue of scraping.

Thats mainly why i want to go for 22's

However i dont want to sacrifice much ride quality. Hense the reason for coilovers. So i can adjust it to the height i want and easily adjust it if i am not happy and so hopefully there is no issue with scrubbing and scraping.

[EXCESSV]

i have the tein coilovers and the standard 19" SSV wheels.
due to my after market exhaust i only have 75mm clearance from the road to the bottom of my cats as the new cats sit further back down the car and there isnt much room to tuck them up.
i get away from scraping the cats on most speed bumps now...not all

but if your not gonna go a full aftermarket exhaust system then the cats wont hang low so u can get away with lowering the car more

that is with the teins sitting 5mm from the top of the bump stops and measurement from centre of wheel to bottom of guard is 355mm at the front and 358mm at the rear (when i put stereo system in the rear will come down to at least 355mm at the rear maybe even lower)

now my tein kit is also fitted with new shorter bump stops too

i will go 20" rims and tyres in the next couple of months and then i will have more clearance so i will lower the car again but being 5mm from the top of the already shorter bumpstops isnt gonna let me go much lower without having a harsh ride hitting bump stops, etc

currently i have NO gap between the top of the tyre and the bottom of the guard...i would love to tuck some tyres up in the guards but for ride and handling both for the street and track its not practical...cant ruin the awesome handling holden have done to these cars by dropping it on its guts.

if u like the 22" then go for it and yeah it will give u more ground clearance than the 20" rims but at the cost of tyres and loss of ride quality i wont go that far....but its a personal preferance

good luck with it all and let us know how u go with pics ofcourse :D

[Neuron]

I upgraded from 17" to 20" and my ride has gotten so much better - all I can say is that the 17's felt like driving on triangular wheels compared to what I feel now (?????).

[[Mitch]]

Be careful going 22". My mate has 22" Throwbacks on his VE SS and they aren't exactly round anymore due to hitting small potholes. Thats running a 30 profile tyre, which unfortunately is about as big as you can go on stock struts without coming into clearance issues. Coilovers may solve that but then you still have issues with hitting the guards depending on how low you want to go.

[R8_Maloo]

I upgraded from 17" to 20" and my ride has gotten so much better - all I can say is that the 17's felt like driving on triangular wheels compared to what I feel now (?????).

They must have been some really busted up rims or some really crappy tyres that you had then...

Basic physics - less rubber is going to equal a harsher ride

Also, generally coilovers will allow you to return to a stockish firmness, but in all of my previous experience even the softest setting will be slightly firmer than stock (which isnt a bad thing)...

so go 22's if you like... at the end of the day i cannot see there being a significant difference between 20's or 22's in terms of ride comfort... i mean at the end of the day if you weren’t willing to sacrifice any ride comfort you wouldn’t be contemplating phat rims yo ;)

[cbwolf]

I'm running 245/30/20 on my 20's and the ride is fine. Going from 235/45/17's i was suprised by the lack of harshness in the 20's ride. Honestly there's not much difference.

The ride will actually be better over small iregularities in the road due to the increased wheel mass. The only time i REALLY notice the difference is over pot holes.

[IronR8]

My SSV currently has 20" ROH wheels on it, wearing Pirelli P Zero Nero 245/35/20 tyres, and I can honestly say that the ride is slightly better than the factory wheels/tyres. The Pirelli's are very quiet in comparison and are definately worth the $. Sydney's 3rd world roads feel just about the same, and the handling feels somewhat better too!

By the way, my car has a mild drop courtesy of Walkinshaw Performance springs.

[pauley]

My SSV currently has 20" ROH wheels on it, wearing Pirelli P Zero Nero 245/35/20 tyres, and I can honestly say that the ride is slightly better than the factory wheels/tyres. The Pirelli's are very quiet in comparison and are definately worth the $. Sydney's 3rd world roads feel just about the same, and the handling feels somewhat better too!

By the way, my car has a mild drop courtesy of Walkinshaw Performance springs.

Contemplating a calais v but confused why noone is talking different front/rear sizes I"m thinking 19 or 20" x 8 or 8.5 front with 245/255s and 9.5or 10s rear with as wide as they will wear lowered to tyre tops.comments please
pauley

[lowriding]

They must have been some really busted up rims or some really crappy tyres that you had then...

Basic physics - less rubber is going to equal a harsher ride



very general though , because there are a lot of factors to consider such as a quality of tyre , tyre compound ,some tyres work better with some chassis , it is possible to have a better ride on a lower profile .


regards

[VEGTS]

Ive had the 22s on for about 12 months & 40,000 ks . You do loose some ride quality but i like the harshness. Ive learn't to drive it like a go cart to avoid the smallest pot hole,$$$$$$ 3 rim issues so far, but hey its the look & ride i like.

[kart_racer]

Just put some 19" wheels on my VT about a month ago, with Nankang tyres. I have to say the ride is much better than I expected, I'm not sure if that's due to the softer rubber or what, but it feels smoother and the only time I notice any harshness is with a big bastard pot hole. :flipoff:

That's just with FE2 suspension.

[Bozza_VE]

When my VE SV6 arrives in about 2 weeks. I'll be upgrading to 19 or 20". I rekon I'll go for 20" cause not much use in goin up 1". I've heard in other brands of cars, that coil-overs are very harsh to ride on compared to normal springs. But everyone here has said they are similar to standard suspension??

[Brandonsdad]

When my VE SV6 arrives in about 2 weeks. I'll be upgrading to 19 or 20". I rekon I'll go for 20" cause not much use in goin up 1". I've heard in other brands of cars, that coil-overs are very harsh to ride on compared to normal springs. But everyone here has said they are similar to standard suspension??

If you get the Teins apparently as you can adjust the harshness or softness.

[RED R8]

I am keen to go 22's on my VE R8 but dont want to F#*K the ride..

[HSVQUE]

I went from 17's/18's on my ve to 22's not really a great deal of difference in ride quality.. The suspension used to make the car low enough to make the 22's look right effected the ride more than the wheels themself.. also depends wat sorta psi you want to run in the tyres also.. When i go for a long drive I usually put more psi in so its a fair bit harsher.

Rob

[RED R8]

I went from 17's/18's on my ve to 22's not really a great deal of difference in ride quality.. The suspension used to make the car low enough to make the 22's look right effected the ride more than the wheels themself.. also depends wat sorta psi you want to run in the tyres also.. When i go for a long drive I usually put more psi in so its a fair bit harsher.

Rob
Thanks Rob :)

[Wonky]

When my VE SV6 arrives in about 2 weeks. I'll be upgrading to 19 or 20". I rekon I'll go for 20" cause not much use in goin up 1". I've heard in other brands of cars, that coil-overs are very harsh to ride on compared to normal springs. But everyone here has said they are similar to standard suspension??

Hopefully EXCESSV (Dean) will see this and reply but he is very happy with his Tein coilovers. According to what he found out the non Tein coilovers can be harsher. From memory the softest settings on the non Teins are equivalent to the Teins well toward their hardest settings.

Maybe PM him if he doesn't reply in here.

[staticexistence]

its just not possible to get the best out of both worlds... i dont get full lock with 20x8.5's and teins set moderately low but not stupid. but i expected that i would have got 19's if it was going to be a problem for me.i found no difference in drivability between tyre size except a bit heavier to steer, i must say that teins are a very soft coilover but for street driving they are great.