Not your typical lift question....

[DaveTM]

Bigger tires = more required torque to "turn 'em."

Back in the day when my primary car was a 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda, 383 4-speed, Hurst "close-H" shifter (I'm still amazed I didn't die in that car on so many occasions), I installed BIG WIDE tires. To get the vehicle off the line quicker, 3:91 rear gears were installed. Yes...quick like bunny!

With electric carts (I have no experience with gas.....and frankly limited with electric) we don't have the luxury of installing reduced gear ratios. (Maybe so....but I'm not aware of it). But aftermarket motors for low end torque are made....and you gain torque at sacrificing top end speed, and vice-versa.

It's always a compromise. But build to what your needs\requirements are with the "stuff" that's available and fits your budget.

[augiedoggy]

Originally Posted by DaveTM

Bigger tires = more required torque to "turn 'em."

Back in the day when my primary car was a 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda, 383 4-speed, Hurst "close-H" shifter (I'm still amazed I didn't die in that car on so many occasions), I installed BIG WIDE tires. To get the vehicle off the line quicker, 3:91 rear gears were installed. Yes...quick like bunny!

With electric carts (I have no experience with gas.....and frankly limited with electric) we don't have the luxury of installing reduced gear ratios. (Maybe so....but I'm not aware of it). But aftermarket motors for low end torque are made....and you gain torque at sacrificing top end speed, and vice-versa.

It's always a compromise. But build to what your needs\requirements are with the "stuff" that's available and fits your budget.

wider tires gave you more traction which in your case helped but make no mistake the physics of gearing are real and when you change the diameter of your tires to larger tires it has the same effext as putting a lower numerical gear ratio in the rear axle. The larger the tire the larger of a change.
My jeep for example came with 28" tires and 4.10 gears. When I went to 32" tires it was such a dog I couldn't use 5th gear any.ore (4cyl) I had to change the gearing in both axles to 4.55 gears just to correct the gearing enough to be able to use 5th gear again. This also dramatically improved my gas mileage in all gears because the engine was no longer struggling as much and my foot wasn't always buried to try to maintain speed. The 4.55 gears also corrected my speedometer as well since it returned the final gear ration back to the stock value with the larger tires by correcting or counteracting the diameter change. Because a larger diameter tire means more distance on one revolution.
Make no mistake going from 18" to 23" tires kills a lot of torque/ power transferred to the ground on a golf cart and increases the amps drawn by the motor on an electric cart to get the job done causing everything to work harder including the batteries.