I believe the gent who asked the tire size question was Chris.
Chris,
Over the last few years I've mentally made note of the tire sizes on a dozen
or so big Healeys because mine has 165 section width tires that to my eyes
look a little small. Most guys I know use 175s but these still didn't look
meaty enough to me, so I wondered about 185s or 195s. So I surveyed some
cars.
Whenever I saw a Healey BJ8 with 195s, these fit OK within the rear fenders,
but NOT up up front; with the 195s there was a whole row of tread outside
the front fender that could potentially throw stones onto the paintwork.
None of the few Healeys I saw with 185s had this problem of protruding
tread, so I made a mental note that 185s look really good and are probably
the maximum size tires I could fit.
I expect the bad things about upsizing from 165s to 185s would be:
1) They are probably not going to look or fit right on my 4.5" wide rims.
2) The steering is going to be a lot heavier in parking, so I'll need a
cup-holder for my Starbucks.
3) It wouldn't be as easy to spin the tires on takeoff or break the rear end
loose on a corner.
Some more cautions against large tires:
I have a TR6 on which the tires and wheels (215/60-15" on 15" x 7" rims) are
to wide. They look really "right" on the car with all the tread just inside
the fenders, and they don't rub and the car has tremendous cornering
ability. But the steering is incredibly heavy when parking and the tires
tend to follow road irregularities. I also think the ball joints and
steering box are under a lot more stress on this car. I also note that the
TR6 with its original 15 x 5.5" wheels with 185 x 15 tires lacked the
current light handling -easy to park feel of my Healey. Which makes me
wonder that although 185s might look great on the Healey whether the light
easy feel of the car would be lost.
-Dave Murphy, SE Michigan AHC
66 BJ8
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