Anyone else try running "square" tires on "staggered" wheels?
 

So I have a set of Weds Tc105N on order. Running 17x8 +42 Front (14.9lb) and 17x9 +35 rears (15.4lb). I wanted the "look" of a staggered wheel fitment with the rears filling out to near flush without the fronts poking out too much (I've noticed that if you go square, everyone has had to pretty much choose the 9's with a little poke or 8's with the rear's a little too tucking IMO).

I'm planning to run a square tire set-up though, and wanted to hear if anyone else has tried this. The plan is Nitto NT-05 in 235/40/17 to go all the way around. My thinking is this: same size tires should minimize the understeer increase caused by staggered wheels. I chose that size because the recommended wheel width for the size is 8.5, so I'm splitting the difference w the wheels. The tires are amonth the lightest I could find in the class at 22.4lb each (according to Nitto tech support, not available on their website) - putting my weight per corner in the 37 - 38 lb range.. lighter than stock with way more rubber. And this size will give me a slightly (negligable) overall diameter than the stock size so I won't screw up gearing in a negative way.

Another advantage is if I choose the forced induction route later on, it's easy to add more beef to the rear end with a set of 255's.

And staying with STOCK suspension for now. I really like the way the car feels and dont want to risk ruining the ride for the look, been down that road before. This is my daily driver, I don't need to get beaten up.

Thoughts?

Should be pretty good, i have Tein H Tech springs and i can say for certain they don't hurt the ride quality at all if you do decide to close the gap a little.

Tires and wheels look good i'm looking at some 17's next year in case i decide to start hitting the track.

I love the wheel choice! Awesome! Great sizes! I am conservative on offset choices and like what you have chosen. The square tire on staggered wheel set has been done. I don't see any issues with it. You already know that wider rear tires are probably in your future... I have never had those nittos, so I cant comment.

You will have 0 issues--ENJOY!

pics of your wheels!

The only problem I forsee is when it comes time to rotate your tires.. The only option will be to dismount them.

You won't have issues per se. But from a practical standpoint its kinda... well, impractical. Usually people do a square wheel setup so they can run the same size tires, and easily rotate them, they also usually handle a little more predictably on a track.

Running the same size tires on different size wheels will kinda put you out of being able to rotate easier. The idea of buying staggered wheels/tires is to have more contact patch in the rear. You see this most often on cars with more power and RWD (corvette, m3, etc) - 86s that aren't turbo/supercharged don't really need this.

Again, its fine, it won't hurt anything and its cool if you just wanted a "look" - It'll be kinda pointless tho if you ever choose to track the car.... or rotate the tires.

Oh, NT05s ARE INDEED LIGHT, they also are very sticky for a non r-compound tire (ran them for HPDEs on my C5 - loved em in the dry) and they wear FAST - Fast enough that I wouldn't buy them again for street use. JFYI.

i forget who did this, but someone ran FRONT staggered wheels with square tire set up on an wrx/sti, put it on the track and saw alot less understeer.

Yes... pics please once you have this all set up!

bump. any pics @hamlet ?

aside from a likely negative impact on handling and the inconveinience, i dont think there would be any serious issues

Still waiting on wheel delivery. Ordered mid sept. Supposed to be here soon. The 17x9 is not a standard production rim that had to be made. Mid to late dec hopefully

Planning on the same wheel setup, but with 245's. Can't wait to see yours! :thumbup:

The 245's will keep the rear from looking stretched but should still be ok on the 8" fronts.

I went down this decision road, too, and chose 235's for a couple of reasons.

1) all the 245's i found added a significant amount of weight. After going all this way trying to save a few lbs with lightweight wheels, I didnt want to throw that out the window with heavier tires that would make the whole setup heavier than stock with all the weight for a tire size that I think is way overkill for this car's power level/weight at stock levels. The wheels list for 15lbs each, the tires are 22.4lbs each. So I should be under 38 lbs a corner after balancing, and I haven't seen ANYONE on here get lighter than stock yet.

2) rolling diameter is affected by going to 245's, too. Although it's a minimal change, the bigger 245 will give you a larger overall diameter effectively giving you taller gearing. Smaller overall diameter has the SAME effect as changing your final drive ratio, effectively increasing the car's ability to put torque to the ground with a slight loss in mileage.

and as an update: I'm expecting the wheels via UPS today or tomorrow, the tires are already sitting and waiting at the tire shop, and the plan is transfer the stock TPMS sensors from the stock wheels to the tc105's.