Noob needs help with choosing wheels.
 

Hello all. Lurk here from time to time but never posted. I have a 2013 frs that I've had for two years now. Never really did any upgrades because I was always focused on my motorcycle. Now I'm done with bikes and want to focus on cars, I just don't know much about them, including my own. So now it's time to upgrade the FRS and I need some guidance. I want to get new wheels and have read a lot of info on the stickies but just can't decide exactly what to get and have a few questions?

If I go up to 18" will I need to change suspension to avoid any rubbing/clearance issues? I plan on getting coilovers soon but I need tires now and want to take care of wheels/tires first if possible.

For front I'm thinking 18x8.5 with a 225 width tire maybe. And rear a 18x9.5 with a 255 width tire. Does this setup make sense? Not sure what to do with offset and other specs of the tires as I don't have a lot of experience. The info I read online is great but hard to tell without having any experience changing wheel/tire sizes on cars.

I want something similar to this style http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/Wheel...3&autoModClar= but these seem pretty cheap and I'm sure I would get what I pay for although Enkei isn't a bad brand from what I've heard. Feel free to make suggestions and thanks in advance for reading.

No, you do not need to change your suspension to avoid rubbing on an 18" wheel so long as you do a standard +1 wheel/tire height (sidewall) adjustment with your tires.

This is called a staggered fit(ment). Since our cars do not make a ton of power, some people do this just for looks. It's been recommended by many here not to do this if you'd like to keep the handling balance of your car the same as stock. Unless you're doing this for looks, and you really don't care about maintaining stock handling I'd recommend against it.

Instead choose a square fit(ment) on our cars of 8.5" - 9" wide wheels retains the stock balance and can be accomplished with 245 wide tires in the front and back.

Offset is a measurement of your wheels, not your tires. Our stock wheels have a standard offset of et48. Depending on both the look you're going for (the "flushness" of your wheels/tires relative to your fenders) on a 8.5" wide wheel you'll need an offset of about et30 - et35. On a 9" wide wheel, et 38 - et40 and on a 9.5" wheel et40 - et42 should do the trick. You may need to add spacers to accomplish this if your wheel doesn't come in the above offsets (many do not). If you don't care about flushness, simply choose whatever offset is closest to stock on your new width of wheel.

Keep in mind, in the front, a 9.5" wheel will not have enough inside clearance from the stock spring perch or fender liner to clear with a 255-265 width tire.

Enkei Performance Series are fine for the street and occasional track or autoX. For the wheel to fit, the specs should be 5x100. This is a very common style, so many manufactures carry something like it. You should be able to find exactly the wheel specs you choose in this style from some mfg.

Thank you @DAEMANO for taking the time to answer his questions.

OP, armed with the knowledge provided, look at posts 2 and 3 of this thread. The stars represent the offset required for flush fitment at each wheel size, and the red and green squares are links to others' wheel threads so you can see how a particular offset wheel actually looks on these cars. This will help provide a guideline to stay within when choosing wheels.

Wow. That really cleared a few things up. Won't be staggering then. I want a wider tire for looks but don't want to sacrifice any performance so I might go a little wider and keep front and rear the same.

I have much to learn. Cars are so complicated compared to bikes haha. Thanks for the info.

Wider tires can start to run into clearance issues with both the spring and the fender, so if you're looking at 245 and up, you need to be sure you have the correct offset or you're going to rub somewhere.

When picking tires, it's important to stay close to the OEM tires' outside diameter or you could mess up the speedo, traction control, and god knows what else. A 215/45-17 (OEM) has an OD of 24.6 inches. If you're staying with 17" wheels, you could go with 225/45 (24.9"), 235/40 (24.4"), 245/40 (24.7"), etc... depending on the wheel width. If you want 18's, then consider 215/40, 225/40, 235/35, 245/35, etc...

There are two ways to choose wheels and tires. Find the tire you want and find a wheel that fits, or find the wheels you want and find a tire that fits. There are a lot of different sizes available for each model of tire, so I'd suggest choosing the wheel first.

I defintiely plan to find the wheels I want first. Probably will end up sticking with 17s now that I think more about it and reading your post. I'm gonna look at some of the builds from members on here for some inspiration and guidance.