I think I can help, maybe a lot. I spent A TON of time (months) choosing these wheels and tires. My factors and goals were the following. Since I'm at work (on lunch) I can't get into as much detail as I would like, but I can tell you my factors and thoughts. I chose to pay special attention to the following.
I run WedsSports SA10-Rs in 18x8.5x45 with 235/40/18 Dunlop Direzza DZ102s on RS*R Sports-i s dropped -1.6" . I run about -2.7 camber in the front and -2.2 in the rear. After install I wanted a more flush look so I added extended studs and 15mm H&R alloy spacers (which are hubcentric and very light weight). If Weds offered the same wheel in a lower offset I would have bought those.
Performance
"European" feel that increased the limits of the stock setup without gaining so much traction that the car was no longer fun on the street.
Comfort
Improved comfort that could work with either the stock suspension or an aftermarket suspension on California's notoriously horrible roads. For this reason I chose 8.5" square wheels that could fit in the front with no clearance issues at full lock. My concern was that 9.5" wide wheels in the front wouldn't clear it.
Budget
Wheel - No more than $400 per wheel (spent about $300 ea.)
Tire - No more than $150 per tire (spent about $125 ea.)
Mounting balancing and lifetime rotations - $100
Alignment - $125 @Lang Racing - Irvine, CA
Tire compound - Newer technologies had to be in there, this nixed many older tires. The Dunlop Direzza DZ102 was a new design for April 2014.
Speed rating - Z speed rated was not necessary for my goals
Tread design - Needed to allot for tire rotation as well as have decent should blocks for at the limit grip. This DQ'd a lot of tires.
Tire weight - Big heavy tires add weight at the place where you don't want it at the edge of the rolling stock.
Tread pattern width - Because I was going with slightly taller tires, the tread width needed to be <= the wheel width (8.5"). Importantly it's been noted that on the track anything wider than 225 starts to see diminishing returns on this car. For AutoX, you want as wide and sticky as you can get and this generally means a seperate set of AutoX duty wheels.
Tire dry feel - In SoCal pure summer tires are generally ok, but they also raise the limits of the car so high that the car would lose some of it's playfulness at lower speeds. Initial bite couldn't be shark like. So this ruled out Michelin PSS, Hankook RS3, Dunlop ZII, and RE-11s
Wheel weight - For 18" they needed to be at or less than OEM. The 8.5 wide version accomplished this. The 9.5 does not (IIRC).
Wheel width - 9.5 wouldn't fit in the front under the stock suspension. Even though I changed the coils, I wanted the flexibility just in case I had to send a coilover in for rebuild because this is my DD.
Wheel mfg technique - Flow formed wheels seem to offer the best of both worlds (lower cast-type cost, with higher forgedesque strength and failure characteristics (bending instead of cracking)) FOR THE PRICE. Yes purely forged wheels are stronger, but the cost was just too high for a car that wasn't going to see the track that often. Also, Weds are a brand I've seen reliably tracked and currently Michele Abbatte is using the exact same wheel (SA10-R) on her NASA car which she beats on.
Overall rolling circumference - I am ok to raise the gearing slightly by slightly increasing the rolling circ to gain more sidewall and thus street comfort. No rubber bands here, but also they don't look "meaty". The are slightly tucked under the fender so it would be hard to tell that they are slightly taller (9mm) than the stock circumference.
Here are pics of the car from today (mostly)
Album link - 8 pics
http://imgur.com/a/ue2Zv
With 15mm spacers and 1.6" drop
Without 15mm spacers and 1.25" drop
