auxilary

lightest wheels? Kosei racing 15" rims are about 11-12 lbs/rim, Rota slipstreams 15" wheels are about the same. Volk racing/rays engineering makes good (but expensive) wheels. of course, there's always panasport wheels, but expect to pay over 200/wheel for quality.

what's your suspension set up? If you're not running coilovers, the widest tire you can use with stock offset is about 225. with coilovers, that gives you about another 30mm clearance.

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

auxilary

the coilover springs have a much smaller diameter than stock springs. Stock springs have a wider diameter, and this allows for more rubber clearance with coilover.

I have the same setup - ground control w/ 200lb eibach springs, tokiko 5 way shocks. If there are no camber plates on the car and the camber is dialed into about 0 to -0.2 or so (normal) then the car's at almost stock height, maybe about 1/2" lower at most. If you get camber plates, you can go a lot lower, but don't go too far, you don't want to bottom out on bump stops. Or maybe the previous owner did a poor-man's camber adjustment and slotted the strut tower holes, which allows you to adjust for about 0.5 of a degree of camber.

hope this helps

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

auxilary

you can get a honda spacer designed to mount 4x100mm patter with typical 40mm+ offset and use most honda fwd wheels. they run about 200 bucks for 4.



Ross Corrigan's wheel adapters.



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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by spudz on 10/05/02 09:35 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

auxilary

Well, for the better, I assume. I don't see how in the dry having a wider tire with larger contact patch would worsen the grip on the road

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

Spudz

The 245/45/16 will work depending on tire manufacturer and if you want to roll
your fender lips. Also the 8" wheel and a 245/45 with a 245/45 tire is marginal
for best performance. I am running 225/45/15's on 8" 4 " backspace wheels and
I had to roll the rear lip to fit them. If you are planning on running Hoosiers, Kumho,
our any other DOT race radial you are going to have to roll the fender lips.

Remember the idea is the get the most tire to the ground and not just the widest
tire and marginal wheel. You will tend to roll the sidewalls during heavy cornering
with a narrower wheel. I am also planning on upgrading to a wider wheel combo.
I was planning on a 275 tire and at least a 9.5" wheel with flares.

Mike

Spudz

Here is a pic with 245/45/16's on a 240 with rolled fender lips.



Same car with the the 245/45/16 tire package with ZG flares. He decided to go to
16 x10's and 275 after he flared it.



Mike

Spudz

Here is a link to Vic Sias's Nationals winning BSP car with 265/45/16's on 16 x10
rears and 16 x 9.5 fronts.

https://www.zdriver.com/classifieds/...x=5&item=10100

Note: tires widths change from manufacturer to manufacturer. Hooisers tend to run
wide compared to other tires from different companies in the same size.

Mike

auxilary

so you're saying the Z is too light to take advantage of wider tires because of the pressure applied to the contact patch is less that it would be on a less-wide tire? ie. it would lose traction quicker with the wider tire because not as much weight rest per square inch?

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

Spudz

Grassroots Motorsports just had a series on tire contact patch,
and that a 8" wide tire and a 5" wide tire have the same contact patch, but it is spread out differently. Lots of factors
come into play when selecting tires , width is just one of them.

Loki, according to your logic a F1 car that is lighter then a Z
doesn't need that wide tire [img]/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/img] . Heck they would save a ton on race tires.

auxilary

i don't think the whole wider tire/less pressure due to lack of weight is very appliccable. It's true to the extent of driving on a straight road. when you enter a turn, the vehicle's weight is pitched onto the tire, in which case the tire on the inside of the turn will lift a little - in which case the more surface area you have on a tire that's losing pressure, the better. The outer tire will have more advantage because it's getting all this weight forced on it.

that's just my 2 cents

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'73 240z
'99 neon R/T

Spudz

Before you go out and buy autocross tires decide in what class you will run in.
Wheel and tire size is regulated by what class you are in. Once you find out
what you will be running then you can shop for tires. I ran several events
last year on studless snow tires. I was fairly slow , but learned alot
by doing so. Most drivers will tell you to get as much seat time as possible
and don't worry about mods for awhile.

I ended up buying used 225/45/15 Hooiser Road Race take offs from a
BMW racer at under $100 a set. Bought some inexpensive Diamond
Racing wheels at $320 a set for 15 x 8' shipped , and used them this
season.

Mike