I just sent a 2012 SS off for a tuner upgrade. The upgrade will lower the front of the car 1" and will lower the rear .8". I have the stock tires and 20" wheels that came on the car and was unimpressed with the tire/wheel option that the tuner offered. So I am going to get my own tires and wheels and mount them when I get the car back.

My question is what are my limits on size and width for my 20" tires/wheels? I have seen some posts on mod cars that have 9 or 10" on the front and 10 or 11" on the back. I would like to go with either a 9" front and 10 or 11" back. But I am not sure if I will need to mod the wheel wells to make this work. Can anyone tell me what the max size I can go with, front and back, without having to mod the wheel wells?

 

depends on offset. i have 20x10 up front and 20x11 in the rear running a 275 front tire and 315 rear. the ZL1 is running the same size wheels, but a 285 tire up front and a 305 rear.you can run a 10.5 front but youll have allot of negative camber...not too good for regular sreet driving.
what do you plan to use the car for? just daily driving? if so, i would recommend just a 10" wide front and 11" wide rear or you could do a 10" all the way around and then you could rotate the tires. lots of options. but make sure you check out tires before you commit to a wheel. you want to make sure the tires are available, and a decent price you can live with , when it comes time to replace.

 

I am curious as to what the tuner suggested as far as wheels and tires.

 

my driving plans are mostly daily, street driving. i will race some but just for entertainment, not anything serious or regular. but even on my daily driving this will not be a full time rine for me so i don't drive it everyday. so i want tires that will work well in that environment but when the urge hits me to take it down to the strip for some racing i want to have something i can rely on.

so this is probably a dumb question but what is the difference in the 275 v. 285 and 315 v. 305. does that indicate the height of the tire?

my tuner recommends Michelin PS2 High-Performance 255/40ZR20 front and 295/35ZR20 rear. the tires that they recommend are not what turned me off as much as the wheels they have to go with them. they are custom to that tuner and are a chrome wheel with a red pin stripe. they just don't look right for what i want to do. i have a red SS and i want to go black on red all the way around.

 

the 275,285,305,315 number is the width in mm. the larger number, the wider the contact patch. the next number, like you have there, 40 and 35 are the percentage of the width that the makes up the side wall. so the one sixe you have there is 255/40/20. the sidewall is 40% of 255mm. and the last number is the wheel size in inches.

honestly, i havent seen very many camaros that go with a 255/40 for the front. i had 295 tires on my car before i switched to the 315 and they couldnt hook up at all on the street. id recommend at least the 305 for the rear, if you want it to hook up good at the track.