which alloy and tyre sizes do you suggest for stretching

Hi, i am looking at getting some alloys and stretching some tyres onto them, I'm not sure on sizes and what is possible and what isn't with stretching. if anyone has photos of the wheels on there cabby so i can see what they look like that would be great.

thanks for the advice in advance

You need to be a bit more specific as to what you want to achieve. Most people run stretched tyres to get a certain wheel within the arches. Without knowing what the certain wheel is it's hard suggest a combo.

There's no point stretching a tyre on a  narrow rim with high offset.

in all honesty i don't know myself what look i want to achieve!! would be great to see pictures of what people have done by not rolling arches, or adding extras, just by adding the alloy to the hub. that way i could have a better idea on what the final finish will look like

Stretching tyres is dangerous imo.
It goes outside the tyre manufacturers specification.
What happens if the tyre pops off its bead at 70mph ?

If it were a good thing to do you would see it in motorsport :-)

It's pretty well documented that moderate stretch is relatively safe. There's very very few instances of bead failures reported and myself and others have run stretch on a daily basis for many years.

My previous daily had 215 stretched over 9J and did 20k miles per year. One of my other rides had 255 stretched over 12J without issue.

I plan on running 6.5j with 165/40 on my Cabrio. Other alternatives I looked at were 8J with 195/50. Both are very moderate stretch and in my opinion perfectly safe.

Drifting is a motorsport and you'll see most run stretch as it increases sidewall stiffness.

there is a website that has examples of wheel sizes with different stretched tyres…. hundreds of combo's & theres photos for each one. i cannot remember what it is though

I wouldnt recommend it though, you seen that video doing the rounds on FB of the mk4 golf? Stretched tyres blowing out on rolling road…. not good.

Rolling road puts more stress on a tyre than even track use.

Tyrestretch.com is your friend for seeing examples.

excellent thanks for the info ill have a look at that website. when u put the "J" after the number is that representing the width of the rim in inches?

Yep. Never bothered looking up why it's a J. It just is.

I think the J represents the shape of the rim or something like that  but as above the measurement is in inches and is the width between where the tyre beads sit on the rim, so a 7j rim will actually be slightly wider than 7 inches from outside edge to edge

ah ok, so wonder why the tyre width is in "mm" if the wheel width is in inches!

so what would you class as a moderate stretch? being ratio between rim width and tyre width and aspect ratio?

arf333 said

there is a website that has examples of wheel sizes with different stretched tyres…. hundreds of combo's & theres photos for each one. i cannot remember what it is though

I wouldnt recommend it though, you seen that video doing the rounds on FB of the mk4 golf? Stretched tyres blowing out on rolling road…. not good.

Do you mean the mk3 golf? and if thats the case that had zero to do with stretched tyres and more to do with having a guise and doing a top speed run.

Probably not advisable with a 24v vrT running 550bhp and a 6 speed box with select diesel internals but the attempt was for fun and it was the Falkens speed rating that was the issue NOT the stretch

jaaquo said

so what would you class as a moderate stretch? being ratio between rim width and tyre width and aspect ratio?

10% is moderate in my opinion. On a 8j rim I wouldn't want to see less than 185 for daily use although if you went with a higher aspect ratio say 50 and above 175 may be acceptable.

You need to look at the brand of tyre too. Nankangs are very popular for stretching and they also come up narrow compared with other manufacturers so take that into consideration. It's my brand of choice for stretch. Falkens are also good but a bit more pricey.

The biggest thing to remember is to run the correct tyre pressues. On a XL rated tyre I wouldn't want the pressure to dip below 38psi, more over I'd like to see it around the 42psi mark.

golf_coupe said

arf333 said

there is a website that has examples of wheel sizes with different stretched tyres…. hundreds of combo's & theres photos for each one. i cannot remember what it is though

I wouldnt recommend it though, you seen that video doing the rounds on FB of the mk4 golf? Stretched tyres blowing out on rolling road…. not good.

Do you mean the mk3 golf? and if thats the case that had zero to do with stretched tyres and more to do with having a guise and doing a top speed run.

Probably not advisable with a 24v vrT running 550bhp and a 6 speed box with select diesel internals but the attempt was for fun and it was the Falkens speed rating that was the issue NOT the stretch

Not sure i didnt watch it it looked like a blue mk4. video was called "stretched tyres fail on dyno"

jaaquo said

excellent thanks for the info ill have a look at that website. when u put the "J" after the number is that representing the width of the rim in inches?

The 'j' refers to the shape of the wheel where the tyre bead meets it.

http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg4.html

Please read the above for all your wheel and tyre questions!