Silver_Bullet_S

I have a 2006 S2K on OEM AP2 wheels which is lowered on KW v2's adjustable coilovers (see pic). I need new wheels and I've read through all the wheel fitment posts on this forum & I've also checked out many other sites on wheel fitment. The more I research the more I get conflicting info on what fits & what doesn't. I'm looking for a "flush" (paralell with the fenders) set up & since i have coilovers I can raise the car up if need be. I'll plan on getting my front & rear fenders rolled next week and if I absolutely have to I don't mind having very minor fender pulling done, but I'd prefer if I can avoid fender pulling as I don't want to do extensive fender mods. I'd prefer to find a wheel that isn't much heavier than OEM, of course if the wheels are lighter than OEM that's even better. I have an AMG C63S I use as my daily driver & my S2K is a garage queen which only gets driven ocassionally from spring - fall, so I don't want to spend more than ~ $350/wheel so wheels like Volks/Rays/Works/BBS are not an option. I haven't decied on 17" or 18" yet, but that's also kind of dictated by the wheels I find that fit & what their weights are. The Enkei RPF1's are my back up, but everyone has those & I'm not exactly in love with their look eventhough they're light & strong.

I contacted Fitment Industries and they recomended 17 or 18's with 8.5 wide up front & 9.5 wide in the back; and they said the recommended offset range for the S2K is +40 to +55 with a +40 being a flush with fender fitment, for either 17" or 18" wheels. The other issue is that all the wheels I like (Avant Garde M220's / F1R F21 / Adohan DS02 or DS06 / ESR) all come in a +35 as the highest offet & I'm not sure how extensive the fender mods I'd need to fit a +35 would be, so I figured I'd ask people on here what was needed to fit an +35 and if that offset is recomended or too aggressive?

Questions I need advice on:

1) What kind of fenders mods would i need to fit a +35, can I get a away with a just a roll & tab relocation at most & what tire sizes would I need to make that fit?

2) Is the +40 that Fitment Industries recomended a better fit or is that still too agressive & if so what would you recomend to be as close to flush if possible? I also feel I'd need different offset vs front & rear so I don't know why Fitment Industries recomened +40 for both front & back; any thoughts?

3) A lot of wheel sizes I've seen will reduce the OEM stagger from 1.5" (17x7 & 17x8.5) to a 1" difference as most of what I like is 8.5 wide up front & 9.5 wide in the rear... Is the smaller 1" stagger an issue or will it degrade handling much?

4) I understand every lbs counts in terms of unsprung weight, most of the wheels I like are about 1 - 1.5 lbs heavier than the OEM wheels, do you guys feel that's too much extra weight for each wheel (total increase of 4 - 5.5 lbs of unsprung weight w/o tires)?

5) What do you guys recomend in terms of 17" vs 18?" At some point in the future i'll most likely go forced induction (head + valvetrain is already upgraded/fully built & bottom end was also rebuilt but still has stock compression) and I was wondering if 17" would have traction issues with more power? What size wheels are you FI guys running?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to help me out.

707ap1

Base on my experiences, I think I can confidently answer questions 1 & 2.

A 17x8.5 +35 all around would work at the rear perfectly fine with a 245 or 255. The front will be more challenging if you wish to go square as you'd most likely need a pull or maybe get away with offset bushings/lower ball joints but should be easiest to fit a 215 or 225.
17x9 and up +35 will pose an even bigger challenge on stock bodies and I would avoid this because of that.

A +40 front and back on say a 17x9 square setup can work. It'll be a huge challenge up front but easy at the rear. From what I understand Fitment Industries aren't experts on our chassis and they're more on the "stance make em dance" side of things. I'd say get some advice elsewhere, like these forums, where people have experiences lots of trial and error in the wheel fitment department.

Since you're on the hunt for wheels, might I suggest the Wedssport SA72R ? Pretty cool looking wheel and comes in nice specs. They're also less than $350/wheel

TsukubaCody

I would never consider 17x8.5 +35 with a 255 all around.

Do you want square tires or ‘stretched’?

You need to indicate more about what you want the car to look like. Post pictures of cars you like.

Also I wouldn’t talk with fitment industries or run aodhan, f1r, etc.

Tire, camber, etc., have a huge influence on what works on the car.

Manga_Spawn

Really +45 on a staggered 8” 9” setup is pretty flush and doesn’t require major pulling and allows for easy 225 255 tire fitment. Enkei makes plenty of wheels besides the rpf1. I think Westport makes wheels in your budget. Hell you can get used volks, advans etc in your budget.

A1A-S2K

I like the look of your '06 with AP2V2 wheels. If you're just looking for the full/flush look, why not consider adding spacers and +1 tires. I have an '04 with AP2V1 wheels, 225/45/17 front, 255/40/17 rear and 15mm concentric spacers on all 4 wheels....on 100% stock suspension. The 225/255 seem to fill up the wheel-wells nicely and the 15mm spacers make the tires completely flush......with zero rubbing. Just a thought.

Shift9303

Just by the name, I wouldn't trust a group called "fitment industries" because I get the kind of crowd they're going after. Every once in a while I get and ad or suggested video from them and the wheel and tire setups on those cars look terrible. Hellaflush trash. Maybe I'm prejudiced but IMO they're just ruining cars.

A couple things to keep in mind as you chase the "flushness" dragon. If you go non stagger the fronts will always look more flush than the rear due to the ways the fenders were designed. With that said, from the options that we're looking at nonstagger is pretty much the only option; and it's faster anyway. There are certain offsets that will look pretty flush at the front but leave some room to be desired at the back, usually in the higher +50 offset range, and certain offsets that well help approximate the difference but the fronts will always stick out more. Also keep in mind that with anything that will give you a flush look you're going to have to run a crap ton of front camber (i'm talking -2.5 to -3.5 range) and even then you'll still have to be careful of curbs and drainage ditches for drive ways and parking lots. I'd wager that the offset difference front to back is about 5-8 mm lower at the back to get even out the fender gaps. Unfortunately there are no easy spacer solutions if you want to go that way. 5mm is too much for stock studs, the thinnest bolt on spacer is 11 mm, and installing extended studs is a PITA and $$$.

My recs I'd stick to around the unicorn S2000 spec of 17x9.5 with +50 to 47 offset. This gets you the best balance of flushness front to back and front clearance. This offset range provides the best balance of front poke and reduction of rear fender gap. The front will definitely poke out but won't be too excessive to deal with that you'd require a pull and the rear will look just about flush. For reference I'm running 17x9.5+51 with 255s and camber F-3.2/R-3.0 camber. Ride height is 560 mm from fender lip to the bottom of wheel lip. Even with all that camber the front wheel lipe still is sitting outside of the fender lip by about ~5 mm. The massive camber does allow the tire tread block to just tuck inside the fender lip however it's still close, maybe 5-10 mm. That might seem like a lot however it unfortunately isn't. I have managed to catch my front fender before and I have to be very careful with certain parking lots and curbs around town that are deceptively deep. At the rear the wheel lip is just flush with the fender lip. The tire bloc tucks inside a bit due to offset and stretch however it looks visually acceptable to me. If you decide to go lower offset (+47) then you will be more flush at the rear but have more poke at the front. It's give and take. One option is 17x10+50. This can sometimes give you a more flush look by stretching the tire wall outboard a bit more due to the wheel width while retaining some more fender clearance due to the higher offset setting the actual tread block more in board. It's still on the bleeding edge though.

IMO +40 is on the bare edge of doable with fender roll and front pull. Most cars I've seen running that setup look like they have a fender pull at the front despite also running massive camber. +40 is also pretty aggressive at the rear and require decent camber back there as well. Based on my car the tread block will stick out even more at the front and it will be just at the edge of the fender lip at the rear; however even at the rear there will still be a decent amount of poke from the wheel lip.

Long post, but I hope that provides some perspective. Also if I may editorialize a bit more, skip adohan and avante garde, they're el-cheapo knock off wheels meant to corner more common car markets. The S2000 requires niche offsets and IMO deserves a bit of extra coin to get it right. Also if there's a wheel from them you like there is likely an original JDM wheel that they knocked theirs off from. For example, those adohan dso2s look like Work CR Kiwamis.

Edit: old pics that some of the usual folks are probably sick of seeing reposted but I think they make good reference.
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kalm_traveler

I can't directly help with 1-3 because I'm not willing to modify the car just to fit wheels but I have driven several various cars with aftermarket wheels which were slightly heavier than factory like you mentioned and I couldn't tell at all on the street at least.

From what I've seen with others, it seems like 17's are kind of the sweet spot for S2000's if you want to maintain a good combo of decent handling and ride comfort but you should be ok with 18's if that's your jam. Keep in mind I'm almost always a function over form guy - aesthetics are great but if they make the car functionally worse/less I tend to shy away from those sorts of mods.

Without more context around what your goals with the car are, in general I would say look for some strong lightweight 17's in a staggered setup with near OEM offsets. Personally I would not run lower offsets than about +50 in the front and +60 in the rear, and as a reminder these are the OEM wheel specs for AP1 and AP2:

stock AP1 are:
16 x 6.5 +55 front 17.5 lb
16 x 7.5 +65 rear 18.6 lb

stock AP2 are
17 x 7 +55 front 17.6 lbs
17 x 8.5 +65 rear 20.5 lbs

Silver_Bullet_S

Thanks for the reply. I wanted to stay staggered since thats how the car came from the factory. I've never driven a non staggered S2K but from what i read going non staggered changes the handling characteristics and is more track orientated than street. Please let me know if misinformed, i'd like to learn as much as possible. I'm not a fan of the super stanced out cars with super skinny streched tires and the wheels slanted in with tons of negative camber. My motor is already built and I plan to go FI at some point in the next year or so and I want the best traction and contact patch I can get, so stretched tires isn't really an option and i prefer the look of square tires. At most I'd only want a very minimal stretch if absolutely needed to alleviate rubbing, but i'd prefer no stretch and I like the meaty tire look. Since i don't know what size & offset wheels to get, i havent figured out the tires yet. I was thinking of 225 in the front and a 255 in the rear with a 40 aspect ratio. Any thoughts or suggestions given the new info i provided? Also, thanks for the heads up about Fitment Indsutries & those wheel makes. I had a feeling something was off. I've included some pics of S2k's that have the fitment I like, the pics are choosen for the stance the cars have, not the wheel aesthetics.

Silver_Bullet_S

Thank you for the suggestion. I like the look the of the AP2V2 wheels also, but im not a fan of spacers. I never feel safe on them. What brand spacers do you have? Do you have any pics of S2k with them on that you coud share? How have the spacers affected the handling, if at all?

Silver_Bullet_S

Thanks for the reply. I was planning on staying staggered unless there's a good reason not to do so, please let me know if should go with a non staggered setup and why. So you'd recomend a +45 on a 8" & 9" setup as the most aggressive w/o needing excessive fender mods? When you say "pretty flush" how paralell is that setup with the fenders? Is going with a +45 with a 8.5 in the front and 9.5 too aggressive and thus i'd need to run stretched tires and negative camber + major fender mods? Also, I'm guessing you meant Wedsport as opposed to "Westport" correct? Sadly I had volk ce28's on my last s2k (this is my 2nd one) but I sold them, regretting it now lol