staggered set ups

why not?

 

I did a search. All I could find is that people have stated that it is not good because of the AWD, but not a single post that stated this has explained it to me why. Hence why I ask.. Why not? What makes it bad to run on an all wheel drive car?

I have a feeling this is gonna be good.

How so...? I did a search. All I could find is that people have stated that it is not good because of the AWD, but not a single post that stated this has explained it to me why. Hence why I ask.. Why not? What makes it bad to run on an all wheel drive car?

I'm not sure of the specifics but it has to do with breaking diffs. A better question would be WHY? Do you have a reason to need a staggered setup? FYI, our cars are 50/50 so even if you could it wouldn't make sense to do so unless you were running a different center and rear diff and adjusted the torque split. If you were doing that I would hope you would be able to answer your own question.

I think the better question is why would you want to run a true staggered setup? Most cars that are just RWD run wider tires in the back to maximize the contact patch, smaller tires in front to decrease friction on the non-drive wheels. With AWD, wouldn't it just make more sense to run the biggest wheels and tires you can front and back since they are all drive wheels? You could look into some 'pseudo-staggered' setups for FWD cars, like R1 Wheels' mass lip line...http://www.r1wheels.com/wheels.html

With those you can have a bigger lip in the back versus the front, which is the staggered look, but the wheels themselves are still the same width.

Ssej for president!

 

In all honesty, I want to run a bigger lip in the back than fronts entirely for looks. Nothing about performance here. At least I am being honest

Wider rear tires = more rear traction. I believe when manufacturers build powerful RWD cars, they run wider tires/wheels in the back to help lessen the tendency to oversteer (ie. increase understeer). I imagine they do this to so that the average unskilled driver is less likely to accidently swing the back end out when driving agressively; plus a bit of bling factor (personally I like the staggered look).

 

I'm not an expert, so I don't know if there would be a negative affect on either deifferential on our cars as long as the overall diameter of the wheels/tires are the same front to back. But even if it wasn't harmful, why would you want/need more understeer, our cars already have amazing grip due to the AWD, and unless you have upgraded sway bars etc. our cars already exhibit slight understeer the way they are made. I don't think the negative in handling offsets the positive of looking better in this case.

wider tires does not always mean more traction...

its the same weight dispersed over a larger area

if you want a bigger lip, get two rear wheels with significantly larger negative offsets. This way, you only break your hubs/lugs and not your diffs

wider tires does not always mean more traction...

its the same weight dispersed over a larger area

 

friction is a funny, nonlinear thing. friction transitions from static to kinetic, right, and static > kinetic. if you have a larger contact patch, you have more rubber that needs to transition to kinetic friction before you loose traction.

no, you technically dont get more traction, you get traction longer.

You can run a staggered wheel setup, but to avoid any damage to the diffs (so ive heard) you would have to run the same tire size.

You can run a staggered wheel setup, but to avoid any damage to the diffs (so ive heard) you would have to run the same tire size.

 

I think the main thing is keeping the weight between all 4 wheels even so that one side isn't spinning slower than the other making the car think its slipping which would cause a continuous strain on the diffs. Granted I pulled that out of my ass when I explained it to my wife. But it sounds logical.

 

This thread is fail, the op needs to get a mustang.

^Well, it's not the weight, it's the revolutions per mile (or per yard, or whatever): the running diameter of the four tires needs to be as identical as possible.

 

But consider the Porsche 911 4 series: they have staggered setups and (rear-biased) AWD. So it's not impossible. If the OP wants to do it, there's no reason he shouldn't, subject to the identical-diameter (under load) caution. HPH

Mustang? No thanks... Just because I love the look at a staggered set ups I should sell my Leggy and get a Mustang great advice!

 

I don't see any fail in this thread. I do see a lot of theory and "I think", "I was told".

 

The difference in tires does make sense. But it never made sense to me why I couldn't run the same size tires on two different width or offset rims. The difference in weight of the rims does make sense, but at the same time, our cars don't have a 50/50 weight distribution so that leads me to believe that front/rear gets more weight at a given time and thus more load for that part of the car than the other. So again, [in theory] this doesn't make sense why one couldn't run staggered rims but same size tires.

 

Still looking for an actual technical answer though; if anyone has some sort of actual technical explanation why this can't work?

^i thought our cars are 50/50.... at least the 05/06??

^Well, it's not the weight, it's the revolutions per mile (or per yard, or whatever): the running diameter of the four tires needs to be as identical as possible.

 

But consider the Porsche 911 4 series: they have staggered setups and (rear-biased) AWD. So it's not impossible. If the OP wants to do it, there's no reason he shouldn't, subject to the identical-diameter (under load) caution. HPH

The GT-R also runs staggered, but thats the way those cars are built and meant to be run. I'm sure the mechanical differences between a lgt and a 911 or gt-r enable that to be, just as putting the same size tires on all 4 would probably damage a 911 or gt-r. I know in the case of the nissan it will void the warranty.

 

You also need to consider that by running a staggered setup, you will also not be able to rotate your tires.

 

"Looks cool" is not good enough justification to make modifications to the car that will adversely affect its performance and/or safety.

^i thought our cars are 50/50.... at least the 05/06??

 

I think 50/50 is for wagons' weight distro.

I think 50/50 is for wagons' weight distro.

Yeah, i know the car is well balanced but im not sure of the weight distribution. When I said 50/50 I was referring to the tourqe split.

thats what i was talking about too... the torque split....

I ran 245's on the front and 275's on the back of my twin turbo Stealth. It didn't hurt anything because the tires had exactly the same number of revs per mile -- not going just mathematically by tire sizes but by manufacturer's specification.

Have you used tape measure to verify manufacturer claim?

Is wear rate the same between different sized tires?

 

Feel free to test and post your findings.

 

The tires must be within .25" of circumference per SOA. Differentials probably can handle more but this is what manufacturer claims. If your staggered setup fits within this limit during its lifetime you should be fine, except probably different handling caused by different shapes of contact patches. Have fun testing.

 

Krzys

I'm with Krzys... Diameter is the key, and if you're not getting response/answers you want from other forum members, just shutup and do it (and find out the hard way). If searching this forum does not yield the response you're looking for, there are many other car forums (with cars based on 50/50 split AWD) that can... sound a little harsh? Some people have problems "telling it like it is". I don't.

...... or you could

Still looking for an actual technical answer though; if anyone has some sort of actual technical explanation why this can't work?

 

You didn't search hard enough because I know I've answered this multiple times.... but i'll do it again

 

 

Our AWD system was designed to have all 4 wheels spinning at the same speed. If you do a staggered setup, you'll likely end up with the front and rear axles spinning at different speeds. The center diff thinks this is wheelspin and transfers power. This will cause the center diff to eventually fail because it is not meant to work continuously.

 

If you size the front and rear tires so that they have the same overall circumference, then technically it would be ok. But aside from looks, there wouldn't be any benefit. (It's gonna look pretty dumb if you have 15's on one axle and 18's on the other anyways)

 

 

Porches and GT-R's have a staggered setup because they were DESIGNED that way from the factory. They have different gearing in the front and rear diffs to account for the difference in speed between the axles.

 

 

 

 

All of you that mentioned weight (of car and/or wheel), weight distribution, and torque split of the AWD system are flat out wrong