1989 XJS. According to what I can find online, our factory rims are 15x6.5.

I've been trying to find an alternative for the 235-60-VR15s that are on the car now, because there are only three choices: Cooper Cobras (which are complete ####), BF Goodrich Comp T/A, and some extremely overpriced Pirelli P600s.

The 205-50-R15 size opens up a massive amount of choices, not the least of which are Yokohama ADVAN Neovas. The speedometer, though, gets off by as much as 10 mph at highway speed (displays 70 mph, but you're really going 80). I'm sure these tires would have the effect of lowering the car whether I wanted to or not.

Short of that, I've read the threads about changing wheels, and I can get CCW to build a set of 17x8 wheels with 20mm offset up front and 28mm offset in the rear, but I'm worried about tires rubbing, and it's a $5000 investment ($4000 for the wheels, $1000 for the tires). That's a lot to drop on the car and find out they scrub the fenders.

If I can't run 205-50-R15s, what alternative sizes *can* I run on the factory rims? I have the BBS-style factory wheels on the car and I really like them, but I will not continue to use Cooper Cobras. Period. Worst tire I've ever run.

Jess

 

Yeah, the 205/50s are a full 3 inches shorter than the original 235/60s. That's a LOT. Gonna look weird. But they should be fine on the 6.5" wide wheels as far as that goes

Consider 225/60, 215/70, or 215/65....but nowadays the choices are getting slim on those sizes, too. Especially 215/70

Rather than $4000 for custom wheels consider 16" wheels from a later XJS or other Jaguar model. Many will fit your XJS. Usually $100-150 each used, sometimes less, sometimes more. Lots of tire choices for 16" wheels

Cheers
DD

 

I don't think BFG sells the "Comp TA" in 235/60x15 these days. They sell it in the standard "TA" line, though. These are not a high-tech, high-spec tire....but there's nothing wrong with them, either. I've had a couple sets over the years.

Cheers
DD

 

If the wheels are smaller, the speedometer will read a higher speed than that what you are traveling.

 

I wrote about a similar problem on my XJS under the subject of "Tires for a 1994 XJS." Basically, my car had Pirelli P600 tires sized at 235/60 R15, which were waaaaay too expensive and didn't last very long. I found that 215/70 R15 size tires worked just fine, and were in fact one of the recommended XJS tire sizes on cars earlier than my 1994.

I found a great tire on Ebay- the Otani EK1000, in 215/70 R15. The Otani has a V speed rating, it fits just fine on my 15 inch lattice wheels, and has a 50,000 mile warranty. The tire doesn't come anywhere near rubbing on the body panels. I have had these tires on the car so far for about 4,000 miles and am very happy with them. Best of all, they are $60.00 per tire, with free shipping.

 

The 210/75 is the alternate size for the 1989, as well. It's also close to what I have on my '87 XJ6.

They're too narrow and the sidewalls are too soft for the XJS, in my opinion. I've taken a lot of steps to stiffen up my XJS with this restoration (or restomod) I'm doing. While those high-sidewall tires do offer a comfortable ride (why I leave them on my XJ6), they introduce too much body roll when cornering for my tastes.

Jess

 

Factory size for the xjs is 215-70-15. Lots of options with this size as its very common. (Even though people say otherwise).

On the rear you can run up to 235-75-15 without rubbing but they look a bit bulbous. It should be a priority to keep same diameter if possible when going wider thats why they have tried using 235-60-15 (diameter a bit too small though)

Max size for the front is 215-70-15 orherwise you will scrape the guards at full lock.

i tried 225-70-15 on the front and they scraped

i run 235-70-15 on the rear of mine but that is because of a differential swap

 

1. 50's will cause the car to ride like a wooden wheeled wagon.

2. The B.F. Goodriches on my XJ are T rated. More than enough for me. Good price. Ride well, handle decently. Oh, on XJS lattice wheels.

Carl

 

A picture of mine currently so everyone can accurately know which wheel I'm running (I guess this is the "lattice" wheel):


I think I'm going ahead with the new rim size rather than the smaller tires, or to continue running sizes that will fit these rims. I'll probably move these rims over to my XJ6 eventually.

Price for four Pirelli P600s right now is about $1200 before tax, delivery and installation. I can get any number of performance tires for the new rims for about $400/set. So basically it's a question of $4600 (rims/tires now) with a $400 replacement cost versus having to replace $1200 worth of rubber every 3 years. And I'll end up getting what I really want in the end.

We've basically rebuilt the entire suspension, front and rear, with a mix of factory and performance components. We've also ditched the GM400 transmission for a 700R4 and we're installing a Kilduff Lightning Rod shifter so I can row the gears more easily without having to drop $12k on a manual transmission. The car wasn't completely original when I bought it anyway, so I'm not heartbroken about restomodding it rather than doing an outright restoration.

Jess

 

tire avaiability for 15's in a 26" tire sucks esp if you want a true performance tire, 16's are even starting to get pretty limited these days. kinda sucks i prefer my 15" latis rims over my 18's i have on the car but the performance trade off is worth it.

 

Agree. I'd be interested to hear how you would compare the two setups so I know how much of a performance gain there is.

I have a Mitsubishi Starion (Chrysler Conquest) as well, and its factory rim size is 16". Ten years ago, I could get any tire I wanted on the factory rims. Now I get 2-3 choices, tops, in the "max summer performance" category on TireRack. Worse yet, if you are "unlucky" enough to have a Starion/Conquest that came with the adjustable SHP suspension, you get wider rims (8s up front, 9s in the back rather than 7s/8s on a non-SHP car) and there are no max-performance options on the bigger wheel. I'm running a set of Yokohama ADVAN Neova tires on my Starion right now, and I think I may have bought the last set available for that rim size. It stinks knowing the best performance I'll ever have on my car on factory rims, is what I have right now, because those tires won't be available when they're due for replacement.

Jess

 

235/60 R16 W rated. $500 installed, with no rubbing or issues of any kind. I hope they make a 15 too, don run incorrect when it comes to what translates your actions on to the road?

 

the difference is night and day. noticed a big difference as soon as i put them on but when i really noticed the most difference was after i had been running them a while i decided i was going to throw my stock rims and tires back on for a little bit as they still had a pretty good amount of tread left on the 235/60/15 grand am gt radials. as soon as i put them on the car felt like i was driving on ballbarings, i switched back to my 18's the same day...lol

the rims i am running are a 18x8.5 on eaither a 28 or 30mm offset i forget exactly, iv got 235/40/18's on the front and 245/40/18 on the rear. iv got quite a bit of room to run larger tires though i plan to move the 245's to the front and put some 255's on the rear.

 

this picture kinda helps illustrate the improved grip



i would be highly surprised if you could get enough grip to lean the car over that far on the current offerings in tires that fit the xjs on the 15" rims

my car still needs more grip i went with a lower end of kinda a middle of the road summer performance tire as i wasn't 100% sure how they were going to fit so i didn't buy a top of the line tire but even still its night and day difference.

 

did you use one of the conversion kits available to do the sbc swap? how much work was it in reality?

 

i copied the JTR mounts. from the book it really wasn't a hard swap to do. but its not the first engine swap project iv ever done. from the time i started pulling the jag engine 2 days till the chevy engine and trans was mounted and 3 days till my first trip around the block with the Chevy engine. but there was still a fair bit of fiddling left to do at that point. but did everything from pulling it in the shop with the jag engine to driving it out under its own power with the Chevy engine over a holiday weekend and then picked away at the little things over a longer period of time.

the jhons stuff appears to be really nice and well sorted as far as i can tell but i thought it was a bit over priced. considering iv done a few swaps before that had no kits available i knew i could pull it off without one but the JTR mount design is very simple and effective and using his plans for the mounts did save me a fair bit of time.

if you have more questions on the swap you can feel free to pm me or ask over on my build thread so we don't clutter up JessN16's tire thread too much.

 

Any good wheel and tire shop should have the tool to measure a custom offset so you will not have an issue ordering custom wheels. Alternatively you can rent the tool for around $50 at many places with a deposit. CCW are great wheels I have them on two cars and when you go custom offsets you can get the widest wheels and that will improve the handling a lot! I am running 16 x 8.5" rims with 245's on my Jag that normally only came with a narrow 175 or 185 and it was well worth it.

 

Hello Primaz

Any chance of sending through some photo's of those coil over and suspension upgrades. I would like to do that to the front suspension of my XJS

Cheers
Steve

 

Im going to second that about the Coopers. Worse than $&#*@

3 years ago when I redid all my suspension, subframe and steering bushings, all brake calipers, balljoints, etc, I fitted new Coopers on the original rims.

This was in Baltimore. The weekend I finished, I drove 45 miles down interstate 95 to Wash, DC. As I merged onto 495 (sweeping right hand turn), I goosed it. Got up to about 110 in the left lane next to the retaining wall. Both left tires blew out their sidewalls. Ended up getting much more intimate with the wall than I ever wanted to.

its taken me 3 years to recover. Front fender, rear quarter panel, front subframe, rims, steering rack, the works..

 

Not to downplay the accident but my GOD man the glass lens is in tact! Those are like 300usd/peice. If you had a rolling parts car you could swap the bits out, hammer or cut the rest back into shape.


As for tire size...
Go to this site type in my tire size vs 205 50r15, its quite a contrast lol
https://tiresize.com/comparison/


My tires are Yokohama Avid Acend 215 70r15 and fill it out nicely.