Hi,
I'm not convinced you are going to give up that much performance on the street. Tire selection will be the key to getting what you want, and unfortunatly there aren't many tires in that size to pick from.
The upside to moving up to 22" wheels and the tire size you have selected will be more than cosmetic. The tires you have now are about 30.039" tall and the new ones will be 30.9 to 31.1" tall. You will actually gain about 1/2" of height under your truck.
While this size of tire/wheel combination will add some height to your truck, it won't knock your speedo off too much; it's less than 5% larger. At 60mph your vehicle will actually be going 61.9mph. Keep in mind that it goes up progessivly from there. At an indicated 100mph on the speedo, you will be running close to 104mph.
Performance on a small change like this is kind of a wild card. You are incresing the width of the tire which should mean better performance when cornering. Like wise, the reduction of tire sidewall will add a measure of confidence to cornering as the tire will deflect less than a tire with a taller sidewall. Unfortunatly, these big, tall, HEAVY trucks do tend to wallo a bit on the soft, off-road suspension, so tires aren't going to help with that issue. As a side effect of the lower sidewall, the tires will more than likely ride firmer. This can also mean they follow the crown of the road and rain ruts more. The wheels will also be more suseptable to damage with less rubber to protect them.
Straightline traction will be less noticed off the line but should be marginally improved in braking performance. I doubt that you will notice the difference even in a panic stop.
Not knowing what wheel or tire you are really going with, I will give you the blanket statement that I think the new set of wheels and tires will weigh more than your current set. Bigger wheel, wider, taller tire = more rotational mass and weight. This also means that it will take more gas to get them rolling and more brake pedal to stop them. Like I said before, this is a relativly small change and I don't think you are going to lose that much in these areas.
Besides your spedo being off, you will also travel more miles on your truck than your odometer will track. That's not a bad thing in my mind. but it is somethign to think about. Any computations you make on gas mileage will also be suspect as your indicated miles to empty and miles driven will be wrong.
The real issue will be with off-road adventures. There are no off-road tires in that size. All of the tires you can purchase in that size will be useless off-road as well as extreemly fragile. They should handle a trip to the beach well, but will not give you much flotation if the sand is soft. You shouldn't have any problems with a gravel road or standing water, but other adventures could be disasterous.
In addition to your changing of the tires and wheels, you will also need to think about TPMS. IF you pull them from your current wheels and place them in your new wheels, then no problem. If you don't tear down your current wheels, you will need to purchase them. A set of 4 should be less than $250 and the truck will discover them with out any outside intervention.
I have heard of Vossen before; good brand. HSE??? Did you by chance mean HRE? Those wheels rock and I would love to see your truck when complete with a set of 22s under it. I will throw in here that Redbourne makes some beautiful wheels and they only manufacture them for Land Rovers. All of thier wheels come in 22" in various finishes. I love the Baron's and hope to get some in 20" so I can keep an off-road tire. I'm not affiliated with them in any way shape or form.
Good luck,
Rob
