Front-wheel-drive cars like Honda Civics' are known for their traction advantage over front-engine, rear-wheel-drive cars. This ability to claw through snow and mud comes from concentrating the weight of the engine, and transmission and final-drive axle (trans-axle) on the drive wheels at the front of the car. The greater the weight on these wheels, the greater the traction on slippery surfaces. Unfortunately this advantage is reduced on high-grip surfaces like a smooth, dry asphalt road or racetrack. When accelerating hard on high-grip pavement, a great deal of the car's weight transfers from the front to the rear. The simplest way to increase the car's grip on the road either under acceleration or while cor­nering is to mount better tires.

High-performance tires can improve handling more than any other single change and, for that matter, more than several changes in some cases. The reason is simple: The tires connect the car to the ground. The stronger the connection, the better handling. So great strides can be made by adding high-performance tires, and even greater improve­ments can be achieved by using competition versions of these tires with soft rubber compounds.

Glenn

185/60R13 seems to be the common tire used based on members of Civic1200.com comments.

If you put 185/60-13s on your selling yourself (and the car) short. The original tires for the Civic were 6.00-12 Cross Plies. These have a rolling diameter of around 590mm. The factory spec for the Civic RS was 155SR13 steel belted radials which have a rolling diameter around 585mm

If you fit 185/60-13 (rolling diameter around 550mm) then you're gearing the car down by around 6% (equivalent to fitting a 5.1 final drive instead of the standard 4 speed's 4.9) - OK for short circuits or autocross (Motokhanas for those in OZ and the UK!) but not great for fast circuits or highway motoring.

This could however be a valid way of compensating for a too tall final drive.

Depending on rim width, for a road car with 13inch wheels I'd recommend:

155SR13 (original factory spec for the RS on 4.5 inch rims - but looks far too skinny)
165/75-13
175/70-13
185/65-13

I wouldn't go wider than a 165 on the original 4.5 inch Accord rims. A 5.0 or 5.5 rim actually improves the performance you'll get from a 165 tire because it lends more stability to the sidewall (by effectively triangulating the sidewalls). 175s are ok on 5.0 - 6.0inch rims. I would only put a 185 tire on a 5.5 - 6.0 inch rim. They're OK on a 5 inch rim at a pinch, but there's generally a little to much sidewall bulge for my liking (with resultant loss of feel for what the tires are doing - because they're actually moving around laterally within the tire!), but never on a 4.5 inch rim.

Of course if you go to 14x6 inch wheels then 185/60-14 is spot on!

Mike S.

Width:
The first number in the sidewall is the width in millimeters

Aspect Ratio:
The Aspect Ratio measures the space starting from the edge of the sidewall to the edge of you treads.

Construction Type:
In most cases the construction will be radial, or R, as printed on the tire.

Diameter:
This is the diameter of the rim needed to fit this particular tire. That is, the rim and tire must have the same to diameter to accommodate each other. This is measured in inches.

Load Index:
Load index is an assigned number ranging from 0 to 279. These numbers correspond with the load-carrying capacity of a tire. Most passenger car tire load indexes range from 75 to 100.