Noob on rims/fitment/specs here with some questions

CARVERitUP

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Hey guys! Okay so I searched...and the questions I have aren't really (at least in depth) covered in other threads.

So I'm basically a noob who is getting a 2" drop for the car in spring and I'm looking at 17" or 18" rims. I need opinions and suggestions and help.

I have no idea how I'm supposed to find the fitment of tires for any rims I get (that one thing that's like ###/##/##) and I don't know where spacers and/or cambers are necessary or what a spacer will really help with.

Please help out a guy who is getting the hang of other parts of his car, but is now venturing into the realm of suspension/wheels.

Many thanks guys, I look forward to the help!
 

HondaLuver83

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225/40/18

This is an example of my motegi rims and tires

The first number is the rated width of the tire

The second number is the tires profile, how thick or thin. You dont want donut tires on nice rims. 40 series is perfect IMO

The last number is the size of the tires inner diameter. Where the lip of the tire sits on the rim. Whatever size the rims are, the tires need to match.
 

RedRyder

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Let me start by saying install your suspension before you do anything with wheels.

When installing new wheels/tires, you always want to maintain the overall diameter of the wheel that came on the car from factory, or at least stay close to it. Reason being that venturing too far off will drastically change your speedometer/odometer accuracy. When moving to a bigger rim, say from 16" to 17", the profile of the tire (second number) must get smaller to compensate. For example, my car came with 205/60/16 tires stock. When I moved to 17" rims, the 60 became 50 to maintain the closest overall diameter to stock. Search tire calculator on here or google and mess with different tire sizes to see what I mean. What it does is allow you to put in your stock tire size and show it in one diagram, then putting in your new tire size next to it and showing that in another diagram...thus allowing you to compare what profile you need to go with to maintain overall diameter.

Some people do not maintain overall diameter (usually because they're lowered more than 2.5" or slammed), and go with a smaller profile that makes their overall diameter smaller than stock. For your drop, 2" is decently mild and going smaller than factory diameter will give you the "small wheel look". While I'm on your drop, you do not need a camber kit for a drop 2" or less. Yes you will run a tiny bit of camber, but as long as you rotate your tires when you would anyway, you're good.

As for what tires fit what rims, every rim width can accommodate a range of tire widths. But there is always a maximum tire width that can fit on a rim. You can learn alot about this by spending some time on Tirerack.com. When you select a rim on there, they will give you a recommended tire size for that rim. Just to give you an idea, here are some typical tire widths and rim widths...for a 6.5" wide rim, typical tire width is 205 (but could be 195 or 215)...for a 7" wide rim, typical tire width is 215 (but could be 205 or 225)...for a 7.5" wide rim, typical tire width is 225 (but could be 215 or 235). The numbers in parentheses are a range, you can actually go lower than those for different results. You can go wider, but going too wide on a rim will make the tire "balloon", which looks bad.

And here are profiles you would go with relative to different rim diameters...for a 17" rim your profile should be 50 to maintain close factory diameter. For an 18" rim your profile should be 40 to maintain closest factory diameter. Again, these can vary at the person's discretion and they depend on the section width. However, with a 2" drop, this is what would I would recommend for you. For the 17, you could actually get away with 45 I think though.

Contrary to popular belief, your tire width will affect your speedo/odo readings as well. The profile number is actually a percentage of the section width, so they are interrelated. I just learned that a month ago lol

Anyway, just do some reading on there and you will learn about this. Also, go through the member's ride threads and see what tire sizes people have put on what rims, and you'll get an idea (you'll need to look up the rim width for some). For what you are going for, I am not going to get into tire stretching, I wouldn't worry about that for your first set. And tire stretching with a 2" drop would look awful.

Spacers are used for pushing your wheels outward toward the fender to make the face of the rim more "flush" with the car.

EDIT: I'm sure someone else can comment on the concept of offset better than I. But you can learn about that on TireRack, and if you search on here, someone linked to a great offset calculator that gives great visualizations.
 
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Stile442

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^+1 nice concise writeup. My tires are 225/45/17 and my speedo is still accurate.
 

inv4zn

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Damn, give RedRyder some rep.

OP, this is probably all the information you need in its coles notes format..haha

Research and more research will stop you from making mistakes and getting wrong size tires that are giving wrong readings, bad rides, looks, etc.
 

CARVERitUP

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Wow thanks so much everyone. And RedRyder I'm glad you posted! Rep for jooo

I don't think I will ever go short of rim/tire info now. Thanks so much! And I guess the only thing left is, for my SPECIFIC car (2000 lx 4cyl) what size/width rims and what size tire would look nice while still maintaining that "close to stock" amount of space the wheel will take up?
 

eggs

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Wow thanks so much everyone. And RedRyder I'm glad you posted! Rep for jooo

I don't think I will ever go short of rim/tire info now. Thanks so much! And I guess the only thing left is, for my SPECIFIC car (2000 lx 4cyl) what size/width rims and what size tire would look nice while still maintaining that "close to stock" amount of space the wheel will take up?

what size wheels were you thinking of getting did you want i think you might wanna choose that first and not ask for someone to tell you because everyone has a different idea of what is going to look good but i would say 17's or 18's will look good
 
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CARVERitUP

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what size wheels were you thinking of getting did you want i think you might wanna choose that first and not ask for someone to tell you because everyone has a different idea of what is going to look good but i would say 17's or 18's will look good

lol refer to OP I said I'm lookin at either 17s or 18s. Just trying to get some opinions on what would look nice and what size I would need for the tires in order to keep the close to stock wheel takeup space.
 

eggs

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lol refer to OP I said I'm lookin at either 17s or 18s. Just trying to get some opinions on what would look nice and what size I would need for the tires in order to keep the close to stock wheel takeup space.

oh gotcha my bad... i wish i could have been more help to you but i havnt had rims on long enough to alter my speeds :( i had 18x8 wheels on my car for like a week but it was only the rears bc i didnt have tires on them if you wanna see what they would look like with a mild drop in the rear and the tires i think were 225/45/18's
 

RedRyder

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No problem. How much wheel gap you have mostly depends on how low your drop is, the wheel has less to do with that than you might think. To know what size rim/tire combo will maintain the stock wheel diameter or close to it, just check this out:

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalcold.html

Plug in your stock tire size, and then a new tire size and adjust as needed to see what size you should get to maintain the factory diameter or close to it. For example, if you plug in your stock size as 195/60/15, you'll see that if you were to go to a 17" rim, the correct tire size would be around a 205/45/17. If you go to 215 instead of 205, you'll see that the tire diameter goes a little beyond what the stock is. Anyway, mess with that to find out what you're looking for. Don't forget that the profile and width are interrelated, so they will both affect your diameter.

Also search the member's ride thread for 4cyl sedans, and you will see other people's setups (how low they are, and what wheel/tire combo they're running). This should also help you decide what route you want to go. As for rim width, I don't have a sedan so I can't speak to that, but some wheel sizes people are running are 17x7, 17x8, 18x7.5, 18x8. I think around 8.5 or 9 width is when you'll start rubbing, again...depending on how low you are, etc.

The question you should be asking is what offset will work best for your car on a 2" drop.
 
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