Hello everyone. Does anyone have a good summer tire that fits on a 225/60R16 wheel? I want to switch from all-seasons to summers mainly for their increased grip and because I live in Albuquerque, I'm not too worried about the temperature needed to run these. Let me know!

 

IMO, the tire size is going to severely limit options. 20 years ago, there would be plenty of options there. But today, virtually nothing comes with 16s anymore - especially not anything performance oriented. The aftermarket side is even worse as most people go up in size (besides the ultra high end drag race crowd).

I tried searching several tire common tire sites and only found 1 summer tire across all of them for that exact size:

PIRELLI CINTURATO P7

But of course it's also on indefinite backorder.

IMO the best bet (if keeping the same overall height) would be a set of larger diameter aftermarket wheels with a different size tire. Going to something like a 245/18 would enormously increase the available performance tire options. Even at least getting to a 17" would let you use the various Michelin sport tires (they dont make anything smaller than a 17" that I've seen).


Another option would be to pivot to a tire size the small sports cars use as an upgrade (stuff like Miatas, etc) - 245/45/16 is super common and would keep the same wheel and has many very high performance options, but it's also 2 full inches shorter overall. So you'd have a speedometer delta and would probably have to lower it to not have a giant wheel gap (which would also lower the car more as it'll already go down an inch from the tire swap alone).

A less extreme middle ground would be dropping to a 225/55 or 225/50 on your current 16s - nowhere near the options of a 245/45, but at least has a few performance options more than your current 225/60.

 

Yeah, I also tried looking around but only got results for passenger oriented all seasons.

How are the performance gains going from stock passenger tires to wider summer tires? I'll probably start saving up for a wheel/tire combo sooner or later.

 

Honestly I'm not a good person to answer that. All of my cars run either high performance summer tires or drag radials year round (Im in PHX, so zero snow, nothing below freezing, almost never rains).

Wife's SUVs of course always come with some kind of all season, but its not really apples to apples as all of the other vehicle dynamics are so much worse too (4k+ lbs, high CG, towing springs, etc etc) so it naturally drives terrible relatively speaking.

I used to run all seasons on everything back when I lived in a much colder state, but its been so long that I frankly can't even remember it anymore (not to mention I didn't really have anything particularly quick at that time anyways - my monte was my only toy at the time and it was already L67 + whipple swapped and destroying all of the tires anyways, lol).

 

I see. What kind of summer tires are you running? I was looking at Pilot Sport 4s tires cause they have really good reviews, but wanted your input on the matter.

 

Absolutely amazing for a street tire. I'm in process of switching my cars over to that from pilot super sports as they wear out. IMO thats the gold standard for a high performance street tire today (at least limiting the field to something that still gets reasonable life).

I freely admit that I'm a Michelin fan boy for performance street stuff, so I will say I've not personally tried any of the newer 'competition' over the last ~7-8 years (when I last bought RE050As for my now-totalled grand prix). Ive got several friends (that are autocross biased) that swear by the RE-71R from a grip perspective as the best tire and give me plenty of crap for holding on to Michelin.

The tradeoff of course is reduced life - even the ones doing mostly street duty aren't even getting even half of the miles I get out of Michelins. Given my cars spend most of their life on the street, that's still an important consideration for me (as there are plenty of 100 tread wear semi-track tires with better grip if that was my only concern). So I find the PSS / 4S to be the best balance for high performance without taking a major hit to wear/life.


With that said, I'm not sure how much power you run, but they're absolutely not drag tires. Id say anything 350-400+ whp front wheel drive and you probably should consider something else for your drive wheels. I had PSS on my C6 when I added the blower and even at my first round of mods / low 500s to the wheel it would blow the tires off up to 3rd gear (6 speed auto, 2.56 rear end). 1st and 2nd were borderline unusable in boost. Swapping to full drag radials cured the issue at the expensive of a massive lifespan reduction.

I do run the 4S on my GTO at high 300s wheel and they 100% stick 2nd / can handle most of the power with a smooth roll into 1st (M6, stock 3.46 rear end). But of course that power level FWD would cause issues as the weight transfer goes the wrong way.

 

Pretty much bone stock for now apart from some supporting mods until I L67 top swap + cam, which at its max (IC, e85, etc) shouldn't even break much more than 350 whp, right? I plan to max out a XP + Gen V blower build, but not sure how much power could be put down on a setup like this?

 

You'd be surprised - the top 5 record holders for that cam range from about 370-390 wheel, and the #1 spot is a close mod match to what you listed. Only difference I think is the top 5 all had ported heads also, but that's not a 40 whp delta, especially on E.

I do think the 4S would still be a good place to start. You're certainly not going to dead hook 1st, even at 350 but it'll still hook fairly well once you're in 2nd. But it'll still be pretty quick and will give you a good idea of how much more traction you really want for the next set of tires (i.e. is that level good enough for your use or do you start getting into the street / track hybrid stuff at the expensive of wear life).

 

Wow, didn't know setups could make that type of power. Still good to know something in that range is something 4S's could relatively handle, and especially considering I won't be at that power right away, they seem like a great option. One thing I noticed is that ported heads aren't offered by ZZP anymore, and I know MMS has been a large source of complain recently. That leaves me with Intense, but how good are their heads? Would the gain really even be worth it for an XP cam for ~$1500?

 

Its been mixed a mixed history. Their original stuff was awful. They crammed in very large valves but to do so had to cut out the entire factory hardened valve seat. This forced users to start running lead substitute additive to their gas to try to prevent VSR / eating into the heads.

They did quit doing that after their heads sales dropped like a rock and started doing normal size valves like everyone else. Their heads were used in several record setting (for the time) cars as they battled year after year against ZZP at the various annual w body meets / drag days. Given they're CNC ported, the heads today should be as good as they were back then.

But Ive heard lately that they've scaled the whole company down to a very small operation and things have gotten slow. I have seen complaints specifically about turnaround time on heads. They're certainly a more reputable company than MMS, but Id absolutely get a lead time in writing/email before buying them.

I wouldnt do it - bang for the buck is pretty poor. Besides, the XP was designed around maximizing stock head performance anyways.

It sounds like you'd be happy with ~350 wheel and this setup can certainly get you there. I remember when I was doing my build talking to a guy over on 3800 pro that was doing a build at the same time shooting for the stock head record. I want to say he came out just a hair under 350 wheel (IC, XP, stock heads, 2.55") and that was literally 20 years ago. I'm sure that record has been bumped up since then as Ive seen stock head VS cars in the 340s since.