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17" rims

I'm not surprised that you experienced increased grip going from a 195 (I think that's what you meant)/50 to a 215/40 to a 235/40.  More rubber and lower profile always helps, everything else being equal as far as tire compound/design goes.  The increased grip did not come from the diameter increase, however, but from the shorter sidewall and increased tire contact patch width....possibly also from a more performance-oriented tire compound/tread design, since I doubt you'd go to all that trouble of putting larger wheels and tires on and  then elect to run tires that were in the same performance family as the original, 15" tires.  I could be wrong on your choice of tires, but it's a pretty safe bet that I'm not.

One can also expect that going from old tires to new tires will demonstrate increased grip, as a matter of course.  So, your example can't really qualify as a good scientific, apples-to-apples comparison/test, if this is the case.

larry
sandiego16v

  Larger, wider wheels combined with lower profile rubber allow significantly greater grip in the corners.  I went from 192/50/15 to
  215/40/17 to 235/40/17 and the difference was not only noticable, it was measureable (g-tech gfrc mode - 0.92 to 0.96 to 1.02).