LiL BenNy

my threads are kinda running out... any recomendations?

LiL BenNy

ps... how do you pick them out lol like the**/**/** what do those numbers represent? lol..

Sigma

Let's look at like this: X/Y/Z

X is the Width of the Tire. As in, the width that you see if you were to look at your tires while standing behind your car.

Y is the "Aspect Ratio". It's commonly called the "Profile". Basically, it's the height from the top of the wheel to the top of the tread of the tire -- the height of the "Sidewall". But, unfortunately, since it's a ratio, it's not exactly a height. So, not all 35-series are created equal. A 205/35 is a very thin tire, you're practically riding right on the wheel. But a 295/35 is quite a bit different. Ratios confuse things, but there's calculators (I'll link one below) to help you out and give you an idea of the size of tire vs wheel that you're talking about.

Z is the size of Wheel that fits into the tire.

So, for the RX-8 (MTXs) the stock tire size is 225/45/18. If you want a direct replacement tire, you'll want one the exact same size. But some people like to put wider tires (make the "X" number bigger) or tires with lower profiles (the "Y" number is smaller), or they want bigger wheels (the "Z" number is bigger).

So what you need to do then (or at least what most people want to do) is do the best you can to ensure that the tire you're buying is roughly close in overall diameter to the stock one. Beacuse if you got one that was really tall or really small, the speedometer would be WAY off because it determines your speed by counting the revolutions of the wheel.

And for this, they make handy-dandy little calculator. Here's the one I always use:
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

You just put in the stock tire measurements, then put in the measurements of other tire sizes you're considering buying, and you can play around with the numbers until you get a difference (you'll see difference at the bottom of the page) that is as close to 0% as you can and you can see a rough approximation of sidewall height so you're not buying something that's tissue-paper thin on your car (made that mistake before).

Personally, since I don't own an RX-8 yet I can't exactly recommend any particular tire. And it depends on what kind of driving you do, where you live, how many miles you're looking to get out of them, etc before I could really point you in a particular direction anyhow. Perhaps if you answer those questions someone a little more informed on the tire availability of the RX-8 can better answer your question.