Tires: What size options are there?

It's me again with another tire question..... sorry for my meticulousness. As I am pondering tire selections, I am curious to know what sizes I can squeeze into the wheel wells. I was at the Outter Banks last week, and was scraping along the deeper ruts on the sand. Some more ground clearance (and grip) would be fantastic. Let's adress this from a suspension modifications standpoint.

No modifications (i.e. stock height and lift):
Stock tire size is a 245/70/16. How much more profile or width can this take without rubbing? Will a 245/75/16 fit?.... or a 265/75/16? At what point will the speedo need to be recalibrated?

Torsion Bar / Shackle lift:
Most of us have probably pondered this quick & dirty mod. Has anyone done this and squeezed in some beefier rubber? What has been your impression on ride quality? How much lift did you (comfortably) obtain?

Suspension lift:
I have seen these anywhere from a modest 1" Old Man Emu lift to a 3" Calmini lift. Who's done what, and how much did it run you???

Make sure you put your truck's model year in your post!
Thanks!

I cant say Ive done anything yet but I definately plan to get the 3" calmini kit. It seems to be the best thing around and i havent heard a bad thing about it. I believe its between 800-900 USD. I wouldnt go with anything else for lifting the truck.

My OEM's were 225/75 16's.

My 2nd set of tires were 265/75 16's, and my 3rd set, because I moved back to the rockies and do more mountain driving, I wanted to take extra load off the tranny,but didn't want as small as 225's; so I got 245/75 16's.

Both the 265/75's & 245/75's fit without a prob, on the 1st generation at least.

If I had kept the 265's I would've had the speedo recal'd, however, with the 245's, I'm only off by 2 mph - just a mental note reminder.

I have a 96 rodeo V6 3.2L 4X4. The original tires were 245/70/16. I've been running 265/70/16 tires for the last two sets. They fit fine with no rubbing. The 265/70/16 is 1.10 inches taller than the 245/70/16. However with the 265's, when the speedometer reads 60 mph, you're actually going 57.8 mph. This is a 3.7% too slow speedometer dfference (not much in my opinion).

Go to http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCalculator.asp . It's a great way to compare different sizes. It'll tell you information such as the width, heigth, and speedometer differences.

96rodeo....
Thanks for that link, it's a great tool! I have to say though, that I am a little perplexed now. I thought putting a tire with a larger overall diameter would cause your speedo to read slower than actual velocity. I am assuming that the speedo measures tire revolutions per unit time, but perhaps I'm mistaken. For argumant's sake, if your original tires move say 1 meter per revolution and the new, larger tires move 1.2 meters per revolution, hence moving a greater distance in the same amount of time, shouldn't your speedometer be underestimating your speed? So if my calculations are correct, at 3.7% difference at 60mph with your 265s, you should be traveling at 62.22mph when your speedo reads 60mph. I could be totally off-base here, but I am thinking that the calculator on 1010tires.com is a little deceptive. Additionally, if this statement is true, then the multiplier is constantly (exponentially) changing with speed, so it would be less of an issue at low speeds, and more of an issue at high speeds. Just something to think about..... Anyone agree/disagree?

rheteric...
You're absolutey right. I copied those figures directly from 1010 tires website without giving them much thought. Going to a larger tire will make the speedometer read slow. Thinking about my rodeo with 265's, when my speedometer reads 57 mph, I'm actually going around 60 mph. I found this out the hard way about 2 years ago resulting in a speeding ticket. The 1010 tires website has that calculation wrong. I hope that clears up the confusion.

About your 265/75/16 fitment question: Do a search on that topic in this forum. I remember seeing some threads discussing that topic a while ago because I was wondering the same thing. I remember reading that on my generation Rodeo's, at stock height a 265/75/16 front tire will rub unless you push back or cut away part of the inner fender molding. However, I'm not sure if this is the same on a 2000 rodeo.

By the way, have you decided if you were going with LT's or P's? It's about time for me to get a new set of tires and I noticed you're asking a lot of the same questions I'm wondering.

96Rodeo

I have a 97 Rodeo at stock height, I ran 265/"75" 16's without a problem for over 3yrs; this was with pulling a boat and traversing over rocks. I had no rubbing issues at all.

RF...
You have a 1st gen Rodeo then, correct? And the 2nd gen appeared in 1998, correct? Does anyone know the wheel well clearance relative to these two generations? i.e. more in 1st gen than 2nd gen, or viceversa. Is it safe to assume that clearance was unchanging within model years of the same generation?

Yes, I have the last of the 1st generation (91-97) Rodeo's. Mine was built in May of 1997 and identical to the 1996 style. Nothing at all in resemblence to the 98+.

I don't know overall clearance issues between the two, all I can say is that I safely rolled with 265/75 16's at one time without a prob.

Sorry that I can't be more help. But, what you could do, is have the shop mount 1 265/75 tire on the front and see where that gets you from a sitting stand-point anyway.

I will suggest that if you tow more then 3K pounds, I don't recommend getting too big of a tire. The tire size alone (265/75's) can take away some power.