29 replies to this topic

[DylanAWRoberts]

Ive seen the 13" wheels alot and they look good but i want 14s as i can get bigger breaks and slightly better handling is this possible?

[Minilover1.3]

To be honest am not sure about if you can get bigger wheels on, am sure you can but with a lot of hassle but with regards handling, the 14s will make it worse. The smaller the wheel, the better the car wil handle. On 10s the car is supposed to handle brilliantly. 12s are ok for road use. The 13s on the last coopers are not supposed to be great for handling etc.

Just what Ive heard from people from a man who owns 12 minis that he rebuild from scratch himself (all mint condition). I got told either stick with my 12s or go to 10s if you want to bit more fun when driving

[Vipernoir]

14s are possible, but you won't improve the handling or looks - in fact, probably the exact opposite...

[Tupers]

Roofless on here runs 14" wheel on his R1 engined Cabriolet.

I don't know if can get a 14" tyre with the same rolling circumference as an equivalent 13" Mini tyre. I'd imagine not as it would have to super low profile in which case you'd almost certainly have to tub the rear arches and cut more out of the wings for clearance.

Roofless's Car does looks quite smart on 14s and I have no doubt they can be made to fit and have at least safe handling/road holding but if you're looking for performance fit some 10s.

[ukshadow]

I bought a mini a few years ago with 14" compomotive alloys on i was told the clutch had gone. The car was only 5 mins from my house so when i went to pick it up i tried bumping it by staring it in gear to get it going then i was going to time the changes into gear (done this in the past just a pain at traffic lights) but it wouldnt move so i towed it home. When i got it home i jacked up the front put it on axle stands put it in gear started and all the wheels did was wobble so i then stripped off the hubs and found that all the cv joints and drive flanges had been stripped of all the teeth. so moral of the storey is mini's dont handle 14" wheels

[roofless]

yes....... with 195 45 14 tyres the rolling radius is only 6mm larger than 175 50 13 tyres ......the cabriolet has been on 14's for nearly 12 years
mine is for all intense and purpose a sportspack body without a roof, and needed no further modifications to run the 14's.

[Noah]

Roofless that must go like **** of a Shovel mate.

[Artful Dodger]

yes....... with 195 45 14 tyres the rolling radius is only 6mm larger than 175 50 13 tyres ......the cabriolet has been on 14's for nearly 12 years
mine is for all intense and purpose a sportspack body without a roof, and needed no further modifications to run the 14's.

But... But.... I thought 14's on a mini is pretty much tr car version of the anti-Christ??

That looks good! So confused..

[Tommyboy12]

Less side wall shuffle means 14s can be well suited to some environments. UK roads is not one of them.

[Pelvisgt]

It works on roofless's car because the car is stunning and they don't look huge

[AVV IT]

Ive seen the 13" wheels alot and they look good but i want 14s as i can get bigger breaks and slightly better handling is this possible?

As others have said 14" wheels are likely to make handling worse as opposed to better, also what sort of highly tuned monster are you running in order to need bigger brakes? If you've got some sort of insane modern engine conversion throwing out 100+ bhp, then I can understand that you might need to upgrade, but otherwise the standard 8.4" disc set up, (or 7.5" cooper discs) tend to be perfectly adequate for most moderately tuned classic minis.

[Artful Dodger]

Even then ou can sill get KAD 6 pot brakes under 13's. You can't need any more braking force than that!

[Cooperman]

195/40 x14 would be the only practical size and the diameter is only 6 mm bigger than a 165/50 x 13.
However, the stopping and road-holding in the wet would be appreciably worse and the road-holding on bumpy roads would also be poor as the Mini suspension needs a decent sidewall depth to help the suspension due to the short suspension travel of the standard Mini suspension.
But, if you want to race or hill-climb the car and will be fitting very sticky 14" slicks for the dry that's another matter entirely and on a dry and smooth race track would work really well - illegal on the roads, of course.

[minimaxie]

DylanAWRoberts arn't you planning on putting a 2.0l red top Vaux in? If so, I can tell you now that you don't need the big 14" wheels with massive brakes. One of the members in our club has a clubby van with a 2.0l red top shoe horned in running on 13's perfectly fine. Takes it down the dragstrips and uses it for normal use and it works perfect
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?fbid=414627831929330&set=a.414627685262678.95670.171397246252391&type=3&theater

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.414627685262678.95670.171397246252391&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=414628741929239&set=a.414627685262678.95670.171397246252391&type=3&theater

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.414627685262678.95670.171397246252391&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=414628758595904&set=a.414627685262678.95670.171397246252391&type=3&theater

[AVV IT]

Even then ou can sill get KAD 6 pot brakes under 13's. You can't need any more braking force than that!

Very true, at the end of the day we're talking about stopping a car that weighs under 650kg here. Regardless of how powerful your car is, once you have enough braking power to lock the wheels up, surely it's not going to slow down any faster until you increase/improve the rubber that's in contact with the road surface?

Edited by AVV IT, 21 January 2013 - 02:32 PM.