Uran

Can you fit 10" wheels on the rx7 without them sticking out the sides of the guards? Im looking at 275/30R19's on the back and 235/30R19's on the front, will they fit?

AbadR1

iTrader: (1)

I personally would not go up to 19's that is too big of a rim for a FD. I saw 18's on FD and it still looks big.

19's rims are expensive and will weigh down your FD. Also the rubber for those rims would be expensive.

Recipe7

17 is your best bet i think. they look good, and they arent huge

Uran

Nah im going with 19's for sure, I was acctually looking at 20's but i decided they look to big. mainly my question is can i fit 275's?

tester1977

You can fit 275's easily with the right offset. However this might mean a custom built wheel. My rear wheels are 18x9.5 with a +35mm offset and 275's rubbed and the 265's were just right. Hope this helped.

Nathan Kwok

Yes, you can fit 275's easily. The widest I know of with stock fenders in the rear is 315 (Kevin Wyum).

Uran

Great, ok now all i gotta do is find a nice set of wheels.

maxcooper

I've got 18x10" wheels and 285/30-18 tires that go on all four corners of my car for the track (<-- see my avatar pic). They don't rub, but I have taken some care with spring rates, ride height, etc. to make them work.

As for wheel size, I would rather have 17s, but 275/40-17 tires are a bit too tall and the 18s allowed me to run the 285s all round so I got them. 19 is not a good choice from the performance (and rubbing) perspective in my opinion, but it sounds like your mind is already made up. A lousy ride from small sidewalls and wheel+tire weight, lots of inertia to slow acceleration, lots of weight to hurt suspension performance (grip), worrying about bending the wheels, and worrying about rubbing are all good reasons to reconsider if you are willing.

There is a thread in the Wheels section of this forum right now that talks about maximum wheel/tire sizes.

-Max

RotorMotor

iTrader: (5)

17" max!!! do you really need to be ridin on dubbs? please people... think of the rotational mass . haha its like the peacocks... the bigger and brighter the feathers, the more the girls notice you right?? B.P.!

Uran

Really how much better performance would 18" give over 19" of equal diameter over the quater mile? Is it nothing an extra 30Hp wont fix?

maxcooper

Tire weight is responsible for a lot of the inertia, so there probably won't be all that much difference if the tire diameter is the same. I did some calcs and estimated that my 18"+285/30-18 wheel+tire assembly would have about 5% less rotational inertia overall versus a 17"+275/40-17 setup. The net lower inertia was mostly due to the reduced overall tire diameter, though -- I think I estimated the 18" wheels alone had 10% more inertia or something like that. They were just estimates, though, so I am not totally sure of them. And all the numbers I posted were from memory -- the only thing I am sure of is that the smaller tire-diameter 18" setup had less inertia than the larger-tire-diameter 17" setup.

18 or 19" wheels will be very hard to hook up on a launch. Throw some drag tires on your old stock wheels if you want to get serious at the strip.

-Max

SleepR1

Uran,

Listen to what's being suggested. This is wisdom coming from the Rx7 forum.

IMHO, 18s with 265/35-18 on 9.5 x 18, 50-mm offset all around would be the largest I'd go for street. The 265/35-18 tire sizes gives a bit more sidewall height for cushioning.

For track, I'd do Max's max wheel/tire setup of 285/30-18 all around with 10 x 18, 2-inch offset wheels (note--this setup requires 2.5 inch coil springs).

I'm a bit more conservative and run 255/40-17 all around on 9 x 17, 45-mm offsets. No rubbing, performance is outstanding, wheel/tire weight is ~44 lbs.

t-von

iTrader: (8)

Hey Max, do you have any other pics (besides your avatar) of your wheel & tire combo from differant angles? 285/30/18's would be perfect for my setup. Except I'll be running 335's in the back with Pettit flares. Did you have to roll the fenders in the front alot?

maxcooper

Here's my info page on the wheels, including links to other pages with more pics:
http://www.maxcooper.com/rx7/parts_i...w18/index.html

Rolling the fenders a bit would be a good idea. I haven't done that and I have caught the lip once or twice. I raised the car up a bit and haven't had any trouble since. And I don't baby the car at all -- I would hate having to do that. You will need 2.5" coil-overs to fit them in front, as Sleep pointed out.

-Max

RotorMotor

iTrader: (5)

so no one really cares about unsprung weight/ inertia? man, you should see the miata guys talk about this ****...they are hardcore! seriously, unsprung weight really does matter as well as all that inertia... just no one seems to care here cause our cars have power. like URAN said nothing 30HP cant fix. well i beg to differ... also lighter wheels = better steering response and better acceleration/ deceleration...like having a lightened flywheel. fact is bigger wheels have more weight further out (where the tire sits) and that area is not only farther out, the circumference is larger. to compound that the tires will have more metal in them (larger circumference as well as further out) adding to the problem. put those heavy tires on youre camaro not youre rx7 which was made to turn and accelerate and decelerate. toyo tires are some of the lightest out there, and SSR competitions are some light *** rims that arent too much $ considering. food for thought guys.... look good or perform well, its youre choice.

maxcooper

Some care a lot about weight, and others have bling-bling as their top priority. We aren't going to sway anyone who is dead set on bling-bling to a minimum weight setup, but we can help steer them toward a better balance of bling versus performance.

-Max

RotorMotor

iTrader: (5)

well said max! i just think that if this topic is addressed enough people will start caring. i just hate to see people spend so much money on performance and suspension mods, and then undo all that with with a heavy tire/wheel choice.

maxcooper

There's another category, too, I guess -- those that care about weight but want lots of rubber. A lot are probably in this category. My CCW wheels and tires weighed 46.4 lbs each when new, which isn't light but isn't too bad considering how wide the tire is. They were down to 45.8 lbs each after a few events. I'd love for them to be under 40 lbs, but I think I found a good balance of tire width / weight / cost. It's hard to gain tire size without gaining some weight. My big track tires stick much better than the 245s I was running on stock wheels, though, so I don't regret it at all.

We are probably a little fanatical about wheel weight and not as fanatical as we should be about tire weight. I'm guilty of that. I've got feather-weight Volk street wheels with reportedly heavy S-03 tires on them. I still think they are a good bit lighter than my track setup, but I probably could shave a few pounds with a lighter tire choice. They feel lighter than the track wheels, and it is surprising how noticable a little extra wheel+tire weight is.

-Max

Uran

Ok, yeah well the car isnt gonna be for track use, id be too scared to crash it. Its basically to take out on a saturday night and look good. Going good would be nice also, but the cops here are really strict when it comes to illegal street racing. I have drag slicks for if i wanna get some good strip times. Well currently I have 245/50R16's on it i think. This weekend im putting on my mates 245/35/R19's Ill c how she goes with them

RotorMotor

iTrader: (5)

max, check out toyo tires... there actually quite light. like the t1-s or hmmm, i think theres one step above those performance wise. my dad put the t1-s on some larger+wider wheels on his miata. since my 7 has been down the last 2 weeks ive been driving it. interestingly enough they tend to "grab up" if you break them free and its real easy to regain controll. i have s-02's on my seven and theyre decent tires but a tad heavy... (hey whats the difference between the s-02's and the s-03's anyway?)