Hi all, new member here - we just bought a 2004 RX-8 5 speed with two sets of OEM wheels - black 18 inch with summer tires and silver 17 inch with winter tires.

I need help figuring out which rims were originally intended for winter and which for summer tires. I am confused because smaller rims have winter tires now, which makes sense, but they are silver which I understand was original RX8 look, presumably intended for summer...

Does anyone know how were these cars originally sold, at least in Germany? I assume silver 17 inch rims were used for summer tires, and I'd like to keep that look. But I don't get why are the winter tires supposed to go at larger 18 inch rim then.

Thanks, any input is appreciated!

 

EDIT: my morning coffee is running late its 18" and 16" oem not 17"

Pictures of what you're looking at would help.

However the S1 8's have two size oem wheels the low power engine( 4 port) 16" and the high power engine (6 port) 18"

low power (4 port) came in auto and 5 speeds and the 16" wheels


high power (6 port) came in 6 speeds and newer autos with 18" wheels


I would use the smaller wheel with the snow/winter tires

 

I'm curious, switching from 17" to 18" and back is OK?

 

yes

 

Use the smaller wheels for winter. As far as I know, no RX8 came with 17"s from the factory so they might be off a Mazda 3 or something, but either way still usable. The low power/auto base models came with 16"s.

Maybe the previous owner painted his original 18"s black?

 

.... ahhh yes loki is correct I brain farted 16" is oem not 17"

 

Thanks guys, these are the wheels I have. I don't really like the look of black rims on a red car, so I was hoping the silver ones are original rims that I could use for summer...

 

Is the black paint peelable? you might find the original colour under there.

No idea what those silver rims are for but it's not an RX8.

 

those are a mazda MPV wheels

 

wow, I'll need to check if that's just black paint on a stock rim :D

 

the black ones are the original wheels that came on the car, the previous owner just painted them black. i see no issue with using the silver 17s in the summer (as long as you put summer tires on of course), ive seen plenty of rx8s with 17s.

 

ok, thanks guys for all replies! It didn't occur to me that he'd paint the wheels. Maybe I'll try to remove the paint because I prefer the OEM look much more.

 

Yeah they are painted, just get access to a sand blaster and let it rip

 

If it's. Plastidip I've heard WD-40 will get it off.

 

if will change the speedometer accuracy moving away from the OE tire’s 25.7” OD dimension. We all pretty much do that though. Because moving to a smaller OD dimension tire effectively results in being the equivalent of having a lower differential gear ratio.

I was running a Toyo R1R 245/35-17 tire in a street tire racing class because it’s super short 23.8” OD dimension resulted in my S1 RX8 effectively having a 4.80 rear gear ratio compared to the taller 25.7” factory tire with the factory 4.44 rear gear ratio. Except we weren’t allowed to change the differential ring & pinion gears to a different ratio, but the tire/wheel change is allowed. So it was a way to get better acceleration and still be within the allowed rules.

However it then also results in the car only being at 55 mph when the speedometer indicates 60 mph. Because the shorter OD tire with smaller overall cirumference length is traveling less distance on the road per revolution than a taller tire. But the speedometer doesn’t know it’s a shorter tire. It only knows to generate mph based on tire rpm, but has no way of knowing that the shorter tire isn’t traveling as far at that tire rpm.

the odometer doesn’t know that either, so it’s effectively running faster thinking the tire is traveling further per tire rpm than it is.

true story bro
.

 

One more question - after I sandblast them, do I need to paint them again with some original paint? Or just a clearcoat? Or just polish them nicely? Sorry, I am new to these things. My goal is to get them back to OEM look.

 

you could probably get it off with some paint stripper. most likely dont need to sandblast them

 

Really depends what they were painted with. Some paint peels easily, others has to be taken off physically. Take them to a wheel shop to have them refinished properly if you're not sure.