i have a 99 katana 750. can i put a 180 rear tire on it if i had a 160? i want to do this without much work?
Do not change the tire size of your motorcycle! It has been designed with a certain combination of suspension components and tires, and any change will be detrimental to the ride quality and handling. A Katana is already a slow turning bike, and a wider tire will make it even slower handling - I'm talking about how quick (or slow) the bike can turn from one side to the other. It's possible that a 180 size tire will fit on there, you just have to see if there's space. If it doesn't fit there's no modification you can do that will help at a reasonable cost. Do yourself a favor and stick to the factory recommended tire size.
If it's FWD, you can't have a solid axle.
I agree with Terje. I used to work at a motorcycle tire shop so I do have a degree of knowledge here. A bigger than stock tire on a bike will always hurt your performance safety. When you fit an oversize tire it gets squeezed on the rim and you end up with a shape the tire was not intended to take, therefore you have too narrow of a contact patch, you would actually have less rubber on the road with a wider tire and the bike would be less stable on turn-in because there will not be a smooth transition from the center tread to the side tread due to the distorted radius of the cross-section of the tire. It is just a bad idea. Your only real option here is to get a different bike or try not to think about how un-cool your stock tire size looks. Actually the literbikes are now returning to 180s from 190s because they handle better. But hey, you can still blow the doors off any Mustang or Civic SI, right?
