Ultra low-profile 14" tyres.....

[darkcat]

Im building a kit car thing at the moment, and in order to fit the arches over the wheels i have, its become apparent that im going to need some extremely low-profile tyres.
The wheels are 14" x 5.5", I need some tyres in the 165-185 width, but im looking for something like 30-40 profile.. and they dont seem to exist...

Any ideas?

[kambites]

Is anything stopping you from fitting smaller wheels?

[darkcat]

kambites said:

Is anything stopping you from fitting smaller wheels?

yes - the hub and caliper size

[alfa pint]

What are they putting on Caterham supersports? That's about the same size wheel and has a rubber band on for tyres due to the nature of the little wheel arches fitted, rather than the classic lotus 7 swoopy ones.

[Bill]

That size tyre and wheel size will only give you a wheel diameter of 19 inches, for comparison a classic mini uses 20" diameter so are you sure you won't get ground clearance issues?

[kambites]

Toyo do a wider one: http://www.camskill.co.uk/products.php?plid=m4b0s3... - 225/40R14

ETA: They also do a 195/45/14, if that's any help: http://www.camskill.co.uk/products.php?plid=m4b0s3...

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 27th April 12:02

[darkcat]

What it is... Is a classic mini body ('79) that i am building a space-frame chassis for, and fitting mazda MX5 front and rear sub-frames to, and fitting a rover V8 up-front. ground clearance wont be an issue as i havent built the shock towers yet.

I have a set of MX5 14's that LOOK like minilites, ish, however they came with 185/60/14's on them and they wont nearly fit inside the mini Euro 5 arches im using (i want it to look vaguely stock..!

[Chrisw666]

You could try asking on some of the VAG forums because some of the guys with 'Euro' look Polos and Lupos have very low profile tyres on small rims.

[deveng]

darkcat said:

Im building a kit car thing at the moment, and in order to fit the arches over the wheels i have, its become apparent that im going to need some extremely low-profile tyres.
The wheels are 14" x 5.5", I need some tyres in the 165-185 width, but im looking for something like 30-40 profile.. and they dont seem to exist...

Any ideas?

Smallest I can think of is 185/55 14 on old fiestas. The 225/40 14 quoted earlier would have a smaller rolling radius but you might then struggle for width.

Why on earth does the car have such large brakes for the size of the arches? surely someone has had this issue before?

[wildoliver]

I'm pretty certain that 13" wheels fit comfortably on standard MX5 brakes.

May make your choice a little easier.

If it does, then I use 185/60x13 off an XR2 on my midget and they look well.

[darkcat]

wildoliver said:

I'm pretty certain that 13" wheels fit comfortably on standard MX5 brakes.

May make your choice a little easier.

If it does, then I use 185/60x13 off an XR2 on my midget and they look well.

They MIGHT just i'll have to check.

However the other proble is that the MX5 hub has a PCD of 100x4, and the Ultralites that i had my eye on (if i could fit a 13) are 101x4. Ive been on to ultralite and annoyingly, their wheels are cast, so the holes are not drilled, and so cant be custom-drilled.

However he said that they often sell them to golf owners, who also have a pcd of 101x4 and they manage to fit them??!!

more research required....!