Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hi guys.

Just got my Sierra (wooo yeahhhhh, will post pics soon) and it came with some 31" Muddies ($1000 worth) on Sunraisers and some 215/80's on the stock rims which are pretty much dead.

It had the muds on when I picked it up last night and even with the 4AGE 20v, it's speed was nothing special at all. As I'm primarily using this car for on road with just weekend trips offroad I'd like some good road tires that will help me save on fuel while giving me better acceleration from the 4AGE. As the current ones are bald, I've been considering options. I read all of the tire threads (truly) in the Sierra bible and it helped me a lot. I also used the tire calculator in there to work out diameter in inch of the 225/75 variant tires to get a good comparisson.

Using my new knowledge and checking on available road based tires, I'm guessing that I should go a 195/80 R15 or a 225/70 R15, both which work out to be just over 27" according to the calculator found here http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html.

Now I know that stock tires would probably be best, but as I have a better engine I'm happy to go slightly larger so the car is capable off road as well as giving me a tiny bit higher gearing for the highway driving which is most of what I do. For the heavy trips I'll put the muddies on but for the one off, I'd like something that can handle a little bit of offroad.

So are the above tires good ideas? Would either be better than the other and in what respect? Should I go smaller or larger? Wider or thinner? Tire gurus, help me out

Mayb look for some 225/75 or 235/75 all terrains, therefore be ok in sand and light mud. Only 1 or so inch smaller than the 31's

Nic

What diff ratios and t-case gears are you running?

cj wrote:What diff ratios and t-case gears are you running?

All stock at the moment. My main reason for going smaller for road is to save on fuel so I don't think I'd want to go any larger than 29".

I'm currently running 2" spacers with 2" offset rims (on the MTR's) so while my car looks like a beast with it's damn wide track and beasty tires, it's causing minor steering problems as well as sucking up the power.

I basically want better acceleration and steering with less fuel consumption than I have currently.

I'll always have the larger tires and offset rims for those bigger trips which I can swap out when I need to.

Its easy to see that u have searched so don’t worry about getting flamed

What sort of 4x4ing will u do with the tyres? Where do u live near the beach or the bush?

If it will be beach and road i would go the wider tyres, but if its bush tracks like gravel and clay u would be better off with the skinny tyres.
I have been beaten (left for dead) by 2 stock zuks running skinny 29" BFG mt in the clay while i was running a dual locked, 37" mtrs wrangler.(Iv now sold the jeep and brought a zuk ), fats look cooler but suck in clay and gravel.

If u are going to do any off road work at all with your road tyres (which u will cos changing tyres all the time sucks) u will need at the very least an allterrain type tyre.

Have fun
PS do those 4age engines really put out 84rwkw

Mate if you want speed, and low fuel economy I woul look at going back to standard tires (26”) for the road, they are really the best I have used on the beach and on the road. Though I had my rims offset 30mm each so I fit in yota trails.

My experience is 26”, 29” and 33”. I noticed my fuel dropped about 10% when I changed to the 29” tires. Then dropped a F#*k load with the 33’s.

I would recommend just using the mudders on the weekend when you go away. Buy a hand powered wrench to get the nuts off and floor jack so it only takes 20 minutes or so.

There is heaps of standard tires and rims around, just ask in the wanted section. I threw mine out the other day.

would have to agree with dewse there.

i run 30" muddies and 26" stockies. The is a big bit of difference when you examine fuel economy, acceleration, top speed, handling and braking. 26's out-perform on the road and on the beach, 30's out-perform in any other area.

If you want fuel economy, drop to 26's. My car is still fairly capable if i drop the pressures down, the only thing that stops it is clearance. On that note, dont attempt anything that requires clearance with 26's, as i learnt the hard way with damaged sills and flares.

Best thing about the stockies, is hitting the beach with 8 psi, dropping it back to 2H and getting on the noise pedal.

Enjoy the zook dude, sounds like a good purchase...GET SOME PIKS UP!!!

Jayden

Thanks for the replies guys. Looks like I'll see what I can grab second hand off here and a Brisbane site I'm checking out at the moment.

Just to let you all know, your guidance and advice since I started looking for a 4WD about 6 weeks ago has been absolutely invaluable. 6 weeks ago I had no idea about anything at all to do with 4wd's. From reading here, I now manage to impress all my mates with my newfound knowledge

Can't wait to take my car off road this weekend.

jeep97tj wrote:PS do those 4age engines really put out 84rwkw

The 20v ones do with a few mods like zorst, extractors and air filter... but not till 8000rpm :p

Doesn't have much more power down low than a stock zukie. But then again, my wheels play a big part in that at the moment.

Blows smoke though when accelerating hard... something I'll be looking into... I don't like the smoke cause it scares all the chicks away

just remember - the fuel appears way worse cos the odometer reading is out by the percentage the tyres are larger... so it APPEARS you're getting less km's, but its only cos the larger diameter is stuffing up the reading on the dial =)