Bearcat94

I understand some people think that a staggered set up on FWD is kind of a "poser" thing. Let's put that arguement aside for a minute.


Does stagger (narrower fronts, wider rears) have a negative impact on handling performance on a FWD car? If so, why?

I understand how racers can use side-to-side stagger to change turn performance, but I can't understand how front to back stagger would be bad for turning performance for FWD, but good for RWD.

u1arunit

iTrader: (1)

Any time you use a larger tire in the rear you introduce more understeer to a car's platform. I have seen this on both RWD and FWD applications.

Besides that you can't rotate the tires with a staggered combo.

Bearcat94

Thanks. I understand about the rotation.


Regards, increased understeer. The logic makes sense:

FWD normally have more understeer bias. Adding "extra" understeer degrades performance.

RWD can experience Oversteer. Adding "extra" understeer improves "balance".


But why does Front/Back stagger add/increase understeer?

MICHAELBPR

I'm running staggered set up 8.5 front 10 rear. To tell you the truth I don't feel any difference. I drive my car hard, maybe not race hard but who does? If you have never had understeer with your oem wheels I don't see you having it with staggered wheels. Unless you take your car to the race track or you drive like a crazy man on public roads.

avs007

Smaller fronts than rear, adds understear, because you have more lateral grip in the rear then in the front. So in a hard corner, the fronts will let go before the rears.

Staggering smaller fronts with larger rears, is completely retarded on a FWD car. If you are going to stagger a FWD car, use bigger fronts than rears... This is what GM did with the Pontiac Grand Prix GXP. It has 255s on the front, and 225s on the rear. In combination with the bilstein suspension, it makes for a more balanced platform, despite the car being front heavy.

Putting fatties on the back and skinnies on the front of a FWD car, does not make you look cool. It makes you look the same as the guy who puts Type-R stickers on their non-type-R Honda.

With that being said, you can go ahead and stagger your FWD car, I'm not going to stop you, as it's your car to do what you want with.

HQTL6SPD

Heres an idea:
8.5 rim in front, 9.5 rim in rear, BUT use the same size tire for both. With 245's or 255's, it'll be a mild stretch in the rear. And on top of that, get nitrogen filled tires (so it won't flucuate pressure), and SLIGHTY overinflate rear tires to reduce their contact patch (caution: too much may actually cause oversteer/or tire blowout). You could even add a little weight to the rear to get a better weight transfer balance; subwoofers and amplifiers would be perfect.

But what about uneven wear you ask?
You can still rotate the tires since they'll be the same size, and the slightly uneven wear won't be so bad since it'll sort of balance out when you swap with the fronts about every 5-8k miles; depending on how u drive.

This is what I plan on doing, and I think it will work out nicely overall. Hope This helps!

limited

Why even bother with stagger setup on a FWD? I understand if you went with wider fronts than rears, but at the same time if you can run it in the front you can fit it in the back. There's no real advantage other than not being able to rotate your tires without having to dismount them and increasing the chance that your shop is going to scratch your wheels, increasing understeer and wasting money on tires. Staggered wheels on a FWD, pretty ricey if you ask me, why pretend to be a RWD? OT, I saw an accord coupe the other day on my way to work and it had a staggered setup, what was ridiculous was the crazy stretch he had on the rears because he was using what looked like 225's on the front and rear. What's the point of trying to copy the RWD look if your not even going to run fatter tires in the back...

Bearcat94

As I asked in the OP, please DO NOT get into a discussion of what looks good or stupid or ricey. These are simply opinions and will never be agreed on by everyone.

The question at hand is:

What are the MECHANICAL effects on turning/handling when running a staggered setup on FWD car?

limited

^Tried to edit out my opinions from my post, but it won't let me. In short, to answer your question your looking at increased turning radius, but generally, wider tires will increase the turning radius and increased understeer. It won't be noticeable in daily driving situations, but at the track you'll notice it as your pushing your car much harder and getting feedback from your track times.

Bearcat94

I appreciate that. The 5-minute edit rule is sometimes a PITA.

The "less front traction leads to more understeer" arguement I can conceptualize.

Can you explain further how/why wider tires increase turning radius? I could imagine 3 scenarios:

1. All "narrow" tires. Based on your comments, I assume, smallest turning radius;
2. All "wide" tires. Again, based on your comments, I assume, the widest turning radius;
3. Narrow Front, Wide Rears. And would guess the turning radius would be 1/2 way between #1 and #2.

Is that logic flawed? What makes #3, the worst of the bunch?

tonyph33r

how come i ask a guy that selling wheel he said TL cant not Stagger. im telling him i want 20 x 8.5 in the front 20 x 10 in the back he told he cant be done. can someone help me should i get 20x8.5 and 20 x 10 or go with 8.5 ?

avs007

Wider fronts increases turning effort, and increases road feedback. Turning radius is more dependent on your suspension/drivetrain geometry.

I don't think running wider/narrower tires in front affect your turning radius. Perhaps I can see running wider/narrower tires in front affecting your turning radius if you fool with the offsets of your wheels. But even then, you're talking millimeters in radius change, which is insignificant. You can increase/decrease the offset, but some of that will be negated by the narrower/wider tire. However, you are still not really changing steering geometry...

Think of a compass when you are drawing a circle, with say a radius of 5 inches... Whether you put a fine tip ball point pen, or a fat crayon on the compass, it won't really affect the radius of the circle you are drawing. The only way to really alter the radius of the circle, is to change the setting of the compass.

MICHAELBPR

This might not answer your question and is just someone's opinion, but I really agree with it:

[QUOTE]All too often I see claims being made about why it is stupid to put staggered wheels on a FWD car. Amidst the numerous reasons given why one should never dream of doing such a thing, my favorites are; "It adversely affects handling" and "Your car isn't RWD." You may well expect that right about now I might say something to rebut those two statements; but I am not going to because they are true. That's right, putting staggered wheels on a FWD car has absolutely no positive affect on handling or performance whatsoever - but then again, I don't recall anyone ever saying that it did.

Not everything that we do to our cars is intended to increase performance. For example, take into account the exterior modifications that most perform to their vehicles. Doing such things has absolutely no affect on the way a car drives. Indeed, there are even modifications which hamper performance - take for example those two massive subwoofers you have sitting in your trunk or the ridiculously low setting you have your coilovers on or the limo tint you have on your windows and the short ram intake that does nothing but suck up hot engine air… It seems that putting larger wheels in the back of our cars isn't the only "pointless" thing we do that adversely affects performance; so then why is there so much animosity towards staggered wheels?

There are those among us who have no aspirations towards using their cars to become the next Juan Pablo Montoya or Michael Schumacher. Imagine that. Don't get me wrong - I love spirited driving just as much as the next guy, but not everyone's interests strictly lie in straight-line speed or in taking a corner as fast as possible.

The whole debate over staggered wheels runs much deeper than one would think. More and more frequently I see a large divergence of purpose in the world of FWD car tuning. There are those who are in it for the "go" and then there are those who are obsessed with the "show". The "show" people are all too often put down by the "go" people, where as the opposite is not the case. It is an accepted fact that if you have a fast car, you deserve respect. This kind of paradox I don't understand and never will.

Let me start this next paragraph by saying that I love fast cars as I know most people on this website do and I have absolutely nothing negative to say about them, so please don't take this in the wrong way. But anyone with enough money can make any car go fast. There, I said it. Throw enough cash into the mix and, bam! - your car will go very fast in a straight line. Aesthetic modifications, however, are not the same. It takes much more vision, insight, and taste to make a car stand out from the crowd than it does to make a car fast. And maybe read this part twice - no amount of cash can buy style. There are numerous cars out there that have had tons and tons of money invested in them, but still fall short of anything special.

Thus we return back to the question of staggered wheels. Why put wider wheels in the back of a FWD car? The answer is so simple it's funny; because those who do so think that it looks good. No claims about performance or anything of the sort - people do it because they like the way it looks. So if everyone is so willing to accept that people tune cars to make them faster, then why not accept that others do the very same thing to express their own style?

And if that comes with the price tag of more understeer, than so be it.[QUOTE]

CL Platano

Word.. These people who say it effects performance or handling have never driven one but like to whore each thread with their useless two cents

CorvettePoor

My thoughts exactly......I love this guy !

CorvettePoor

This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. So stupid, I couldn't stop laughing. I think you need to buy some type R stickers and put em on your car.

limited

^+1

There is a formula to calculate the turn radius, but this program makes it easier:
http://www.marmon-herrington.com/cc_calculator.htm
Choose any axle and wheel base combo, then change the tire width to see that the turn radius is affected. It just an effect of wider tires and lower offsets in general. Like I said "It won't be noticeable in daily driving situations."

I don't know, I think I'm the only one in this thread that actually has first hand experience with a staggered setup..


245/40 front and 275/35 rear. SIlver accord 205, white accord 195, my G35 275. I can tell you going from the stock 235/45 setup to the new staggered setup was a noticeable bit of understeer, but turning radius wasn't a problem, especially since I never find myself turning my wheels lock to lock.

Kennedy

iTrader: (2)

Bearcat... AVS has pretty much summed it up here. There's little more discussion to be had on this topic based on your request.

Truth be told though, it isn't that big of a deal unless you autocross your TL. Almost any daily driven car will never feel the difference in suspension peformance by running a staggered setup.

... but I concur 100% with avs007 comments.

MICHAELBPR

Check post #4
I guess I not cool for installing Type S tail lamps on my 06 TL

HQTL6SPD

Whats your problem? Do I bash your opinions? No..

Explain whats to me what's so dumb exactly. If you have negative stuff to say to me, you can PM me you know. OP asked kindly to keep this thread clean.. people like you ruin it for other AZ members with manners...

MICHAELBPR

^+2. And I think he uses some other guys picture on his avatar.NOT

Kennedy

iTrader: (2)

Replacing parts for a different aestitic look or performance enhancement is one thing... Installing a badge that pronounces your car is of a certain speciifcation when it is clearly not is another...

HQ, I cannot think of one example of adding weight to the rear of a vehicle that would be considered a performance enhancement. There's nothing about your plan that would be considered a performance enhancing mod.

HQTL6SPD

^ I understand, they're really just 'feel good' mods for daily driving. I have gotten plenty of good feedback from much older and experienced drivers whom I let drive my car sometimes. Each of these mods made a nice improvement, with each one I found that I had to use my brakes less and less for turns. I've drivin some real high end cars while working at MB dealer; plenty of spirited driving with them.

Ex: By having 35psi all around and 30lbs of cargo in the truck, I got the same feel in handling as when I upgraded to Progress RSB. My Logic is the same as removing weight from the front to get a better weight distribution (think about it). One day, when I got in my car to go home after a gas run in an SL550, I could hardly notice the understeer of my FWD. Definitly felt the turn radius supersize though.

So would these mods be effective on a track? Probably Not

Did they feel like an improvement for street driving? Hell Yea

No offense, but I think you guys should go try this out before you tell me that the difference I actually FELT was only a dream. Do some R&D, then post your results.

Bearcat94

Thanks to all who replied on the physical effects of running stagger on a FWD.

In the end, I guess there are some questions that shouldn't be asked. On the Golf Equipment Forums it's Cast vs Forged Irons - the debate is endless, but rarely rational.