Tire replacement on '02 P5 OEM wheels
 

I've been reading thru as many posts as I can find on this..

Which of tire sizes WILL fit and do well on my P5 stock rims?
Like everyone else, I want to improve handling where possible.

205/45/16?
205/50/16?
205/55/16?

Pros and cons on sizes?

Thanks in advance.

ProV

One thing you will want to do is keep the tire diameter as close as possible to the stock tire diameter...this keeps the speedo right and interference/rubbing problems eliminated.

the tire size you would want to go with would be either the 45 or the 50 series tire. either one will put your speedo off just a tiny bit .... the 45 will make the speedo read 1 mph low at 60 and the 50 will make it read 1 mph HIGH at 60.....of course the faster you go the more the error gets......

if you want to play with tire sizes and see how this all works here is a link to a tire size calculator and all you do is put the original tire size in on the left...and the one you want to go to on the right...and it tells you all you want to know below the image.

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Thanks.

I'll check out the link.

I am very pleased with the 205/45/16s (Yokahama/AVID)

The change in speedo is less than two MPH at 60MPH

but

You will really want to lower the car to fill the wheel well again - just to make it look 'right'...

Is the difference in height that noticeable?

Don't forget, smaller diameter tire = lower gearing. In our Protege's that's usually a Good Thing, since we aren't the Horsepower Kings to start with. :)

Yeah, actually it did feel a little quicker to speed...

The difference in height was 'noticable' to me. Enough that i wanted the lowering springs to make it look 'right' again. The eibachs lowered it more than the smaller height - so my wheel-wells look fuller now...

The combination of the wider wheels and lower springs= WOW. I can't describe how much more (because it was really good STOCK) 'confident' the car handles. I toss it into turns at speeds that really would have scared me before.

do it.

Off thread (maybe) - what is a skidpad number with the wider tires/lower springs? We are .79g s STOCK. Slalom time?

Did you have any trouble mounting the 205/45/16 tires on the 16 x 6 stock wheels? 205/45/16 tires are said to only fit on 6.5-7.5 inch rims. Will a normal tire mounting place mount this size tire even though its not to specs? I would really like to use this tire size, but the 6 inch rims are scaring me away from it.