hunginator

Performance wise, what are the pros/cons of staggered vs non-staggered wheel setups?

F20AP1

Your gonna get alot of arguments on this and it come to preference but I like staggered only because honda designed it that way with a 22.6 mm stagger from front to rear... 1 inch wider in the rear wheel is 25.4 mm divided by 2 cause your only gonna take in account the face of the wheel... so 12.6mm plus the 10mm higher offset that the rear wheel has so a total of a 22.6mm stagger for the face of the wheel and a total of 12.6mm for the back of the wheel...Let's just say Honda engineers spent alot of time designing this and they have more than enough racing experience to know better right? My .02...

rjones

I think it really depends on what other changes you want or are willing to make. Most of the people that are fans of non-staggered are limited by class rules that limit tire size and wheel size. If you are not building to a class rule, I think you would want the widest wheel/tire that will fit, and would most likely end up with a wider tire in the rear.

Both ways will work very well, they will just need a different setup with spring rates and swaybars to match the tire size.

hunginator

So, to stick with a staggered setup, I should go one-inch wider in the rear... not 1.5 inch? I'm thinking about 17x8 in front and 17x9 in rear with 225/40/17 and 255/40/17 sized tires, respectively.

F20AP1

If you would really like to stick true to honda's specs you would need a total of 1 inch wider in the rear with a +10mm offset more in the rear as well... for example... 17x8+40 front 17x9+50 rear... that's just an example in no such way am I telling you to run those... I personally have a 18x9.5 front +30 and a 18x10.5 +30 and am stretching tires... but I'm not so much going for handling characteristics as I am for the swang and bang factor... but take into account as soon as you lower your car all of that geometry is gonna be much much different... But generally I like stagger setups much much more, I've tried non-stagger but dont like the feeling, I also dont like how many people on the forum "think" that swaybars fix the problem of a non-stagger setup as swaybars are meant for tuning not correction... example, you have a bad cut on your hand are u gonna stitch it (coil over with proper tuning) or put a band aid (swaybar)... again my.02 but to each there own...

LeonV

As you increase rear tire size while keeping fronts constant, you tend towards understeer. Vice versa for increasing front size. In a nutshell, this all has to do with the cornering capability of the tires. Smaller fronts will limit your lateral acceleration in the front, thus you understeer at the limit. With this in mind, the car was engineered with a certain balance. Production cars will 99.9% of the time lean to the safe (understeer) side of the handling spectrum, at least with regard to steady state cornering. Power oversteer and throttle-lift oversteer are completely different topics.

Making just the fronts bigger will move handling tendencies to oversteer in steady cornering. While making both front and rears bigger will increase the total lateral load capability of the car, there will be more steady state understeer when compared to a "square" setup.

FWIW,
Leon

F20AP1

As a RWD car that the rear of the car is generally wider than the front (very much like the s2000) you always ALWAYS want to fit as wide of a tire to maximize cornering grip so since the rear is wider why would you limit yourself to a 255/40/17 all around when u can easily do a 255/40/17 front and a 265/40/17 rear or a 275/40/17 rear, why not a 285/40/17 rear e.t.c... my point is why would you ever limit yourself to a "square" or non-stagger setup to me it's a compromise and most people do it so they can easily rotate tires at the track for better tire wear conditions... catch me? The rear of our car is wider than the front.. tuck a wider tire back there like it was designed to do... plus simple physics dictates more weight shifts towards the rear of the car during acceleration cornering loads...

ViperASR

Which is why the Acura LMP car uses a non-stagger setup.


I'm not sure I understand this at all. You say swaybars are meant for tuning, which people use the larger front bar to tune out some of the oversteer associated with a non-stagger setup. You can use either spring rates, sway bars, or a combinaiton of the two to develop the handling characteristics you are looking for. Many of these people that "think" they can fix the handling with sway bars are national champions.

LeonV

I never mentioned anything about which setup is the better one, nor did I say what should or should not be done. I've just summed up the facts. Also notice that I did not say anything about transient behavior (e.g. accelerating out of a turn), the information provided is for a steady-state corner. There is always going to be a compromise, as the decision of tires really depends on the end use of the car. Depending on what you're using the car for, you may not be "limiting yourself" with equal sizes front-to-back. The OP asked for performance differences between staggered and non-staggered setups, and I've presented them. It is up to you to interpret and use the knowledge.

F20AP1

is a acura LMP a front engine rear wheel drive like the s2000...? confused as to how your comparing the 2 cars... maybe you should compare it to a corvette or a viper maybe something a little closer to the characteristics of a s2000...

My point is proven... do band aids work...? yes they work... is it the correct or recommended way? I highly doubt it... ask a real race team with years of pit experience... is the amuse s2000 dialed in by just a front sway bar? hmmm... how bout the J's s2000 also hmmmm... /ponder...