245/40/18 + 285/35/18
 

They fit! No rubbing. +45 offset in the rear. It is flush with the edge of the rear fender.

The car feels AWESOME. So planted, so firm. Very purposeful, not as light and nimble, but more solid and stable. Slightly more body roll due to the stiffer sidewalls and more metal beneath the wheel, but that should be easy to take care of.

The only problem is it looks like the car is set up to go offroading. My roommate keeps asking me if I'm getting nosebleeds getting into/out of the car.

:D

This setup should be awesome for my turbo.

Oh yeah, this means I have 4 18" x 8" Mazda OEM Dark Chrome wheels for sale.

glad to hear they fit

lets see some pics!

If you get a chance, please try swapping tires and see if the rears will fit up front w/o rubbing lock to lock. I am very curious. Thanks.
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LovelyWendie

is the car lowered?

I'd also like to know if the 285s fit up front

285s up front is ridiculous. Absolutely NO cars that I've EVER seen run a 285 up front, maybe something AWD and huge?

someone wanna host the pics?

We're talking autocross applications here. Simply because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it's ridiculous.
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Buick ln3 3.8l mpfi- how it works

you can host the pics on here..click "go advanced" and down to manage attachements

also, there was a musstang at the autox sunday with ~12" wheels up front.

What offset in the front? Also, is your car lowered? What width are the rims? 9 in the front and 10 in the rear?

Thanks,

ntg-R

complete theory and bullshit.

I've owned several high power turbo cars and I assure you that when I staggered my 235/265s on my RX-7 it still didn't control the power. On the 225s on the RX-8 stock I was getting kickouts with STOCK POWER. The 245s front/285s rear are absolutely perfect right now, and should hold the power when the turbo arrives.

So, are we disagreeing with the following cars then?

SL55 - 245/285
F360 - 215/275
F430 - 225/285
DB9 - 235/275

My 2001 911 had 225/285 (265 stock but later when I changed the tires I went to 285 & it actually fit better).

Yeah we can disagree with them. Those cars you mention were all designed to have larger rear tires, especially the mid engine ones because they are heavier in the back. Comparing them with the RX-8 is apples and oranges. If you're doing it on the RX-8 to deal with increased power, then that's fine, but the car will understeer more with a staggered setup.

We disagree because car manufacturers are concerned about liability lawsuits. That's why you have an "accept" button to use nav. Wider tires in rear mean more understeer which is usually more controllable by Joe Driver. This is good for the manufacturers.

Your statement of "complete theory and bullshit" is false because the writers of that article went out and drove the car using different wheel configurations.

People who espouse identical wheels do so because of less understeer in a turn. You are promoting staggered wheels because of "kickout", which I assume implies drag-strip straight line type of driving. This is apples and oranges. I agree wide rear wheels are beneficial for straight line acceleration. I disagree that staggered wheels are (generally) better for turns.
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Prilosec Sickness

It's interesting to note that the 2nd place SM2 finisher at the SCCA Solo2 nationals last year was a supercharged Miata that used staggered tires (225 front, 245 rear). This, on a car with legendary balance from the factory (and no stagger).

First place was a FD, also with staggered tires.

I think you reach a point where a finely balanced car becomes unbalanced, based purely on the power output. Both these cars have more power than stock, the Miata in particular is running 2-2.5x the stock power output. If you want to accelerate out of the corners, you may need to put more tire on the rear than you want or can put on the front. But I'll also wager real money that those drivers spent allot of time trying to re-balance the car via suspension tuning once they installed those staggered tires.

Personally, I don't think I'd like a staggered setup on the RX-8 unless I had gobs of torque or some significant suspension tuning to minimize the understeer. I love to "kick out" the tail every now and then - it's what makes the car fun. More importantly,. I like it to be sensitive to the throttle position mid-corner - if the car starts understeering, I want to tighten up the line using small adjustments to the throttle. Doing this is the halmark of a well balanced car. The RX-8 is one of only a handful of cars that come that way from the factory. But I admit I'm thinking about this from the perspective of stock power levels.

But since the original poster is talking about forced induction, I can see why he took this approach. Intunitively, I'd rather put 255s all around and use suspension tuning to get a little more traction at the rear, but then I haven't gone down the F/I path yet. I'm about to strap a blower on my Miata, so I'll be testing this approach shortly.

George

i like it

I just ordered 20" Zenneti Mystics

Front - 255/35/20
Rear - 285/30/20


I was Assured they would fit like a Glove :)