no, not 'that' beef silly

okay.... here's the 411:

i bought my truck when it had steel chromers on it with *non* 'e' rated tires. so i went for the h2 take-off route. i put on the 17" h2 rims with 315/70/17 bfg's on em.

here is how i feel about it... looks killer. very killer. ride is okay on the highway. but, i have an occasional rub. my t-bars are cranked all the way, and when i hit a dip, it gives me the same feeling you get when you are leaning back in a chair and you think it's going to fall backward. it hums on the highway, and it kicks up gravel or dirt onto my doors. they slowed my truck down off the line. i can handle all that for the looks, but it goes on....

i'm going to pull a heavy trailer at least 4k miles, maybe even 6,500 if we take a side trip. the last pull i did with the 35ish inch bfg's hurt my mileage (bad), and on a few occasions, it waited too long for the shift from 4 to 5.

so, i would like to put on tires with the same height as 265/75/16, but i would like to have them wider, as long as i have wider rims (8 inch i think?). and... if i don't have big beefy all terrains, i'd like to goose them somehow.

are there any suggestions for wider street type tires for 17" rims? if i get wider, but with 265 type height, can i drop my t-bars back down to near stock?

thanks.

why not 285/70/17's? That would be a nice compromise....


Tom :pig:

why not 285/70/17's? That would be a nice compromise....

Tom :pig:

it might be.... but i'm just not sure that change in effective gear ratio would be enough to make the change worthwhile. also, would really like drop the t-bars where i have reasonable down travel again. i can also see some lube oozing from cv joint :eek: (no drops, just dark around seal)... which is really making me think i want to get my t-bars down.

it all just seems frustrating though, because the puny stockers look so, so, so.... lame

Yeah, what TheBac said. That's the exact size I run on mine. Toyo Open Country's. T-bars only cranked 4 to 5 turns. Win/win, all the way 'round. IMO.

BB

Look at the cognito website, I think you'll get more wheel travel with the A-frames they make.
You could go with 265/70/17 or 285s, the 265s probably look to small on those rims, I'd go with the 285s. just my $.02

I have 265s on my H2 wheels, & I think they look great. I had 265s on my factory PYO wheels also, & the extra 2" width on the H2 wheels make 265s look much better.

My local 4wd shop said a spindle lift & blocks on the rear would cost around $600 installed and let me go back to factory height on the torsion bars and still run my H2's, that might be a route for you to go on your truck

thanks for the suggestions.

is the cognito leveling kit the same thing as a spindle lift? i read about the cognito lift, and it sounds like it would fix downtravel, but does it fix the angle of the cv joint?

i'm not sure the keeping height is the route i want to go, because i'd like my effective gear ratio back to haul heavy, and i'd rather not swap my gears in my axles.