Hi everyone -

I have 1979 RX7 with racing beat lowering springs (approx. 1 in lower than stock I believe). Everything else is stock. Looking to mount 15x7 Rota rims with 20mm offset. Seems like the front tires will rub the springs as the Rota rims are about 1/2 inch closer to the strut than the stock waffles. I have read many posts but still confused. Many say that you can add a spacer to solve the problem of rubbing the springs, but wouldn't that create issues on the outside rubbing the fender? I am not sure about tires but thought that using 195 50 15 tire in the front instead of 205 50 15 might help solve the problem. Anyone have advice or recommendations for this? I have not rolled the fenders and would prefer not to.

 

So I have similar setup but my RB springs have one coil cut from each and my wheels are Konig Rewinds 15x7 same offset as yours. I run 205/50/15 tires and no rubbing on the springs. I did have to lightly roll my front fenders probably because I dropped a coil off the springs. If you go with 195 you will be even safer I bet.

 

Thank you for the information. I guess I wouldn't know if they rub the fenders with 205 tires until I commit and install. Don't really want to go with 195 tires as I think the section width is narrower than the outside of the rim which I think would look odd. Maybe not though.

 

ROTA RB 15x7 20 offset. 205/50 tires front & rear. Stock springs, stock height, no fender mods. No rubbing on springs or fenders. Minor/light contact on T.C.Rods (rubs dust off one spot at full lock, but I never felt or heard it).

 

195 wont look stupid on a 7" if you did decide to go that route for whatever reason. Just sayin'. There will be plenty of pics on the interwebs.

 

I am running 15x7+20 195/50/15 F and 205/50/15 R on my FB. I dont think I had any rubbing issues with the stock front strut assembly. Running coilovers now.

I remember it being close to the spring/strut perch and maybe the 195's helped with that up front. I think 15x7+20 is the best fitment for an FB (non GSL-SE)

 

Thank you all for the great info and pics. I decided to only mount two 205/50/15 tires and test them on the front before mounting all four tires. I also read that different brands of tires may have different clearances/dimensions when mounted which did not make sense to me given that the stated width should be the measurement from sidewall to sidewall but there may be other factors, plus I am not a tire guy so I decided to proceed slowly. Also, the sidewalls on my 205's seemed to bulge out farther than in the pics posted by Maxwedge (looks like he has kumho tires and I bought hankook ventus) but I guess that's pretty hard to really determine from pics. To me, the test fit of the 205's on the front was too close for comfort with the hankooks I bought, so I decided to swap the other two tires for 195's, and go with 195 in the front and 205 rear. I don't think there was any rubbing on the front with the 205's during the short test drive that I took, but the inside sidewalls were very close to one of lower coils on the racing beat springs, probably only about 3mm of clearance sitting on the garage floor, so it looked like there would be rubbing when the suspension is moving since the springs get wider nearer to the top, Also there was no fender rubbing, but I only took a short test drive and it looked like it would rub (again it seemed like Maxwedge's pics of the front 205's did not protrude as far as mine did). I hope to get all four mounted and installed this week and I will post a pic if you guys are interested in seeing how it turned out. I guess there are only a few of us out there still putting wheels and tires on a 40 year old RX7. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

 

I didn't have any rubbing in daily driving when I first went to the Konigs. Then I drove to DGRR with a loaded car through the blue ridge parkway at speed, still no rubbing. We get out on the Cherhola Skyway the next day, no extra load in the rear, rubbing. I used the handle of my BFH to manually roll the fenders on the spot to fix it. Tires got some grooves in them but nothing a little wear won't cure. The lesson here is, unless you push the car hard on a track or doing some serious carving you will likely never see clearance issues on the street. This why so many folks post that it's not an issue for me, cause they never pushed hard enough to get the issue in the first place.

 

+1, my car is running 225/50/15's on a 15x7 wheel with a 7 offset, and it doesn't rub because its not lowered... i actually did need to do what TG did, one fender lip (left rear) needed to be bent up slightly

next set of tires will be 205's, we've learned that 205 on a 7" wheel is pretty much the optimal wheel/tire size for performance.