Aggressive Wheel and Tire Setup for My Toyota Prius

Who knew that the Prius bodywork could fit so much wheel and tire under it?

The Prius did survive the track day and drive home. That’s how the last episode of Project Track Taxi concluded, and it’s true, it did. But, and there’s always a but, it wasn’t the quietest, or smoothest drive home. The 600-treadwear Fuel Fighter tires on the Prius managed to not delaminate or explode on the race track, but had such severe uneven wear that the car vibrated at speeds over 70 mph and it pulled the wheel so hard it felt as if the car had knocked the alignment out.

A track-focused wheel and tire package quickly jumped to the top of the list in terms of upgrades for the Prius, but this required a bit of math and educated guesstimation. Much like the Great Stability Control SNAFU, not many people are speccing wheel and tire packages for a Prius intended for maximum grip. And when it comes to my personal principle on track setup, it’s simple: there is no such thing as too much tire. If it fits in the fenders, it’s the right amount. Simple, but effective.

Toyota Prius Track Taxi build DriveBreakFixRepeat

The standard Prius wheels measure 15x6 and roll on teeny-tiny 195 section-width tires. Generally speaking, you can go +20mm on the rubber and an inch wider on the wheels with most cars and get away without rub and fitment issues. Fortunately, the third-gen Prius not only has ample room between the front tire and the strut, but even more room on the fender side, so it’s time to go big.

However, the Track Taxi’s budget looms heavily overhead, and wheels and tires are sure to eat up the biggest chunk of the budget. So after some online searching and a bit of negotiating, I ended up with a set of Rota SDR wheels, sized 17x7.5 +48 in the Prius’ 5x100 bolt pattern. A 7.5-inch wheel will easily fit a 215 tire on it. This is an almost identical fitment to what you would find on the Subaru BRZ Performance Pack, and later Toyota 86 models, which doesn’t sound like much until you remember it’s going on a Prius.

And I was happy with the choice, for about eight minutes, before deciding to go bigger.

17x9 is a pretty normal track day wheel size for smaller cars, and my rough math showed that it would fit up front, and after perusing the usual spots (Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist), my solution appeared on eBay Motors: a set of D-Force LTW5 wheels. These are some of my favorite budget-minded performance wheels, as they look great, and typically clear big brakes, if that’s your thing. This particular set was dual drilled 5x100 and 5x114.3 with a smaller 56.1mm hub bore, designed specifically for Subaru and Toyota fitments. How fortuitous. With a +42 offset they clear the strut by a mile and seem to clear the fenders, as well.

The Prius is front-wheel drive, so the front wheels are doing the accelerating, steering and the majority of the braking, so the plan became a typical FWD staggered setup: the 17x9s up front, and the 17x7.5s out back. Thanks to TPM Parts, my local race shop, I ended up with a set of the popular Bridgestone RE71R tires, sized 245/40/17 and 215/45/17. Until recently, these tires long dominated the DOT-legal, 200-treadwear Summer tire battlegrounds that cause SCCA autocrossers to have heart palpitations. It’s time for a test fit.

The rears fit perfectly, unsurprising given my general +20mm rule, but the front is… aggressive. With the massive 245-wide Bridgestone rubber, the Prius has a solid half-inch of poke up front. This is likely the most aggressive wheel and tire fitment ever run on a Prius. At its current monster truck ride height this is no problem, but the Track Taxi isn’t going to be rolling around on the blown stock suspension for much longer, and when all is said and done, this is going to be one of the coolest looking Prius to ever grace the streets of Los Angeles.

Want to see more Track Taxi goodness? Follow Jake on Instagram, it’s all cars all the time.