Tires and Wheels

[Pwolf]

So uhh... noob alert?

I don't know much about either but I'm planning for the future (xmas present to myself perhaps). I think I've decided on which wheels I want, Rota RT5 Hyper Black:



I don't know much about wheel or tire dimensions or how those will affect the ride or performance. I've pretty much driven on stock wheels and tires for every car I've owned so I don't have much to go on. There's also fitment/clearance to take into consideration.

Which is why I'm here. I'd probably post in the wheel/tire forum but I trust you guys a bit more and think I would have a better understanding of any advice you'd give me (I think...). Plus I know a few of you are running these wheels.

First, wheels... wheeldude has a set of 17x9 with an offset of 42. I understand what the offset is but how does it affect performance and/or handling, as well as fitment and clearances on stock suspension?

Tires... I know pretty much nothing about tires so I don't really know where to begin on this. My car is a daily driver so I'm just looking for something that will give me good wet/dry performance as well as last long enough so I don't have to replace them too soon. Not a big fan of the meaty/4x4 look i've seen on some cars as well. Something similar to the stock wheels would be ideal I think (i think... I really don't know -_-)

[ZionsWrath]

First of all, check the proper section.

There is one dedicated to wheel and tire forum here http://www.ft86club.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=24

In there you will find the basics on wheels and tire http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3062

And a thread of pictures and specs of specific wheels http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7535

[Cjymiller]

As Zion said, do your research using the abundant resources in the wheel thread. My opinion though is that if you don't plan on going to the track, stick to anything under 8.5 width as you wont really need all that extra weight/grip eating up your gas mileage.

[Clipdat]

You've seen my car/wheels, they are 17x9. Just to give you an idea of how they look. On stock suspension it's definitely going to look 4x4ish, at a bare minimum I would look into a 20mm drop.

17x9 wheel means you are going with a 245/40 tire. This is significantly wider than the stock tire so as mentioned your gas mileage is going to go down.

I love those wheels though, they would look incredible on your car, I was going to go with them before I got the Enkei Kojins.

[ZionsWrath]

Originally Posted by Cjymiller

As Zion said, do your research using the abundant resources in the wheel thread. My opinion though is that if you don't plan on going to the track, stick to anything under 8.5 width as you wont really need all that extra weight/grip eating up your gas mileage.

This. 9" + is kind of aggressive in the front, especially on stock suspension and wide tires. 8.5" is better but there are very few options there and are for the most part costly. Considering this is your first wheel and tire setup I'd stay a little more conservative. Square 17 or 18 x 8 offset ~35 with a 225 tire should be plenty to make you happy for now.

[MagicBobert]

One thing to keep in mind is clearance for the springs up front. I just put on 18x8 +48 wheels and 245/35 tires and there's only a couple millimeters of space between the back of the tire sidewall and the springs. If you want to run wider wheels in the front you need to push them away from the suspension with a lot of offset.

Also, my city gas mileage fell off pretty dramatically moving up to the 245 rubber. The wider tires also numbed the steering feel a bit too much, IMHO. I'm thinking about pulling them off and selling them while they still have a lot of tread life left and going with 225/40 tires instead.

As the others have mentioned, think really hard about going with dramatically wider wheels. After switching to 18x8's I don't think I would personally run anything wider than 8" on this car. It kills the mileage and starts transforming it into a super grippy race car, which is great if you're putting 350+ HP to the wheels and spending all your time at the track, but I'm not. It's a daily driver and weekend canyon carver for me.

As for good tires, I went with Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Great balance of daily driver, performance, treadwear, and dry/wet grip.

[PMok]

Originally Posted by MagicBobert

One thing to keep in mind is clearance for the springs up front. I just put on 18x8 +48 wheels and 245/35 tires and there's only a couple millimeters of space between the back of the tire sidewall and the springs. If you want to run wider wheels in the front you need to push them away from the suspension with a lot of offset.

correct. if you are going to coil overs then you can accommodate 9" wide wheels and tires in the front no problem. If you are staying stock suspension or installing lowering springs at most, then 8.5 is the widest you want to go. Unless you are ok with running spacers to get more clearance in front. Hint: most performance-oriented guys don't run spacers, they buy wheels with the proper offset to begin with.

[finch1750]

You can run a 3mm slip on spacer with stock studs. That would give a functional +39 offset that should clear anything shy of -2° camber up front. This is what I have gathered in a bunch of research to prepare to fully build to stx on stock spring perches.

Like others said though you really should lower it (swits and rce lower the least I believe). A 8in wheel would be good for a DD/canyon car so mpg doesnt suffer like stated.

In terms of tire Michilin Pilot SuperSports are regarded as one of if not the top high performance summer tire. It should last 30k+ miles and can handle the wet pretty well. I personally am running Bridgestone Potenza Pole Position S-04. I really like them so far and and was looking for the same things your are since I DD as well. They also run fairly wide so you could run a 235 without a huge stretch and have more clearance to run the 9in width in front. FYI it has a 8.5in tread width which is the same as the 245/40 Pilot SuperSport and tirerack lists the 235 as fitting on a 9in wheel. Plus, tires would be cheaper (about $40/tire right now when I looked)

[Xerious]

Originally Posted by PMok

correct. if you are going to coil overs then you can accommodate 9" wide wheels and tires in the front no problem. If you are staying stock suspension or installing lowering springs at most, then 8.5 is the widest you want to go. Unless you are ok with running spacers to get more clearance in front. Hint: most performance-oriented guys don't run spacers, they buy wheels with the proper offset to begin with.

actually, I run 18x9.5 square with a 40 offset. I have no issues running this wide with coil overs and I also ran this on stock suspension for a short time and had no issues either.

I love the grip and ride of my setup, and was consistently getting about 29 mpg.

you can't go wrong with either a 17" or 18" setup. depending on what your goal is, you should also factor in the overall weight of the wheel and tire combo. a lighter 18" wheel vs a heavier 17" wheel setup will also affect the ride and feel. I went with a lighter 18" wheel.

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[PMok]

The tricky part is that wheel width, tire width, offset, and alignment/camber all come into play into determining whether or not your setup will clear the stock suspension. Wider wheels and tires with a low enough offset # may clear stock suspension ok but due to how tight the clearance is you may not be able to get the maximum camber you'd want to prolong tire life or enhance performance. Staying with the stock susp gives you limited adjustments and my thought is stay a little conservative with wheel fitment. If your plan is to go to coilovers then that opens the door to more possibilities.


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[BigFatFlip]

^All sound advice, lots of good info out here.

Originally Posted by Pwolf

First, wheels... wheeldude has a set of 17x9 with an offset of 42. I understand what the offset is but how does it affect performance and/or handling, as well as fitment and clearances on stock suspension?

Personally, offset looks sexy, but not ideal if you are planning on keeping your suspension stock. I would guess that the suspension is optimized to the stock offset, which is why I went with a similar offset. Offset essentially widens your track (theoretically better handling) but it also lengthens the lever arm placing loads on your stock wheel studs, which I would guess, were never designed for such loads, but probably were designed with a certain safety factor (you might get away with it). Spacers can be used to produce the same esthetic, but increases the number of parts that can go wrong (tolerance stack up, etc.) which makes a single, correctly offset wheel a better option.

Then there's the width, but I think everybody explained that pretty well. Only thing I would add is that the wider the wheel, the wider the tire, more tire, more weight, more rotating mass, more work to turn, worse handling/response/accel.

But again, I'm no expert, so this could all be just BS

Originally Posted by Pwolf

Tires... I know pretty much nothing about tires so I don't really know where to begin on this. My car is a daily driver so I'm just looking for something that will give me good wet/dry performance as well as last long enough so I don't have to replace them too soon. Not a big fan of the meaty/4x4 look i've seen on some cars as well. Something similar to the stock wheels would be ideal I think (i think... I really don't know -_-)

I know you are talking about me when you said "meaty/4x4 look"

Joking aside, taking into account that you have been happy with stock wheels/tires on previous vehicles, only plan on doing daily driving and still want to keep decent drivability and fuel economy, I would go with a slightly wider, stickier summer tire. "Summer" tires are kind of a misnomer since they actually have good wet and dry grip, just not good for snow.

I have 225/45-R17s RE-11A's and have been very happy, granted its a bit more than I really need. Lots of good brands and compounds there, pretty hard to get a "bad" one with the type of driving you have in mind.

I would also recommend looking at the information section on tirerack.com

[Pwolf]

Thanks guys, very much appreciated.

[Clipdat]

Take a look at the Enkei RP03 http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/Wheel...All&sort=Brand

5 spoke look, 17x8 +48 18lbs

Originally Posted by Pwolf

Thanks guys, very much appreciated.

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

Take a look at the Enkei RP03 http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/Wheel...All&sort=Brand

5 spoke look, 17x8 +48 18lbs

Uhoh, you dun did it now, you got Drew started