17" vs 18"? Keep in mind that is only the interior of the wheel. Who cares if it is 17 or 18 as long as you can get what you want on the outside.

Neither 17s or 18s are inherently better or worse, lighter or heavier, rub or don't rub. It is the whole package of how you put it together. If there was a 1" outside diameter difference in the tires that would be a problem, but the wheel is just the jelly filling in the donut of life.

On either set up you have the same worries of weight, offset and can I get the tires I want? Of all those worries the toughest for me was finding the tires I wanted. I do not want race rubber. It is too much hassle to store, and too much work to have to trailer out to the track and then change the wheels. I want dual duty and don't mind trading off a little wear factor.

I feel that wider is better when it comes to tires (within reason). But that requires wider rims which means more weight (but not much!), which also means more care has to be taken not to have clearance issues.

I really wanted a lip on my rims, but I have not found a way to get that lip without going smaller on wheels and tires or creating a rub issue. We only have just so much room in our fenderwells. You can choose to either fill that space with lip or tire. I ultimately chose tire. I just wish there were a way to have both other than a widebody kit.

 

David - as far as not changing tires for track, I think I might be with you on that. If I can sell my OEM rims for $500 that can buy me (most of) a new set of tires, ceratinly good for a few track days.

 

I ran Texas Motor Speedway last year on my S02s and was very pleasantly surprised.

It may have been my excellent driving skills, but I doubt it, but I was able to run with everything except a little Lotus 7 clone.

That is why I went back to S02s, albeit in a much larger size.

 

Reference for wheel weights:

 

Here's a photo of my 02 Berlina with 18" Volk GT-U's with stock suspension. I did not weigh the tire and rim combination, but they felt extremely light and I would say they were comparable to stock. I noticed absolutely no decrease in acceleration performance. However, there was a noticeable increase in the handling department (probably attributed to the wider tire patch 225 front & 255 rear). The ride (to my surprise) is actually smoother than stock, and this may be due to the difference in the rubber compound between the stock S02's, and the S03's that I'm running on the Volks.

 

Check tire rack to see if you really did get a larger contact patch area. You could just be feeling the new tire euphoria. The stock tires are 7.1" wide fronts and 8.5" wide rear.

The S03s are notoriously heavy.

I have 16" S03s on the front of my car and they are softer riding tires than the S02, but they also do not have the grip level.

I like the rims. It's a shame they don't come in the proper offset to put some real rubber under the car. I have 9+" wide front tires and 10+" wide rear S02s to go on which takes a 60ish offset

 

You're giving out some good advice, but please consider refraining from even indirectly/subliminally discouraging people from going S-03s based on "notoriously heavy". And if they are, care to list the weights and true measurements to back up your statement between manufacturers? What exactly is "notoriously heavy?"

All that said, S-03s are excellent tires. I'd venture to say the best street tires out there for summer and wet weather performance.

The weight of the tires should be one of the lowest priorities in your tire selection list of criteria.

FYI-style,

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by simons2k I have several factors outside of weight to consider when shopping for a wheel.

 

Not to hijack this thread, but I have one now, in this forum. I am looking for advice on tires for my 17in SSR1 GT1, car lowered 1.3-1.5 with Tanabe. Any adivce, would be greatly appreciated. I am at work and the search function takes FOREVER to come up.