Originally posted by RogerB:

1. Get the widest wheels allowed, in 16" or 17", as light as possible. Looks? Who cares. Lightness is beautiful. Tires? What Weargle said. I like 205 width on my 16x7.5, because the sidewalls are braced better than a 225 would be, and provide max stiffness. I'll probably go with the MX because I do expect them to be street tires, for real. (And thanks to Weargle's advice...)




OK, I agree with Roger on most points except for the tires/wheels.

This is a good article on Plus sizing wheels/tires on an autocross course: http://www.grassrootsmotorsports.com/plustest.html

Let's assume that you're prepping for STS. You can go no wider than a 7.5" wheel, which is fine considering what we have in the wheel well available to us. Now, what are you most interested in: a) fast cornering or b)quick acceleration? On the track, I'd say "a" in a heartbeat. But this ain't the track. The name of the game is 1) stopping/slowing the car efficiently and 2) accelerating from one "feature" (slalom, turnaround, chicago box, etc.) to the next as quickly as possible. This is the major reason why I went with a 15x7 wheel rather than a 16 or 17. Ideally, I would have gotten custom drilled Kosei K-1 in a 15x7.5, but I chose to get the 15x7 at half of that price -- I couldn't rationalize the extra four bills. There are some neat pics here: http://www.sccaforums.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/22/773.html showing the differences between 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5 inch wheel widths. You should get the widest wheel that you can afford to make sure that the tread gets applied more completely to the surface, and in doing so you have less deformation of the sidewall. Sure, you can wrap the 205/50-15 Falkens around a 15x6 (like the stock Miata guys often do), but you sacrifice some tread.

But, that being said, wrap the fattest frickin tire that you can around whatever wheel you use. A 225 is better than a 205 would ever be -- that's almost an inch wider x 4 wheels!

Also, with the 16 and 17's, you have a higher rotational inertia that is harder to accelerate and stop quickly, even with fantastic brakes and the torquey engines that we have -- it's just physics. It may adversely affect our top speed in any given gear, but I'll take that extra split-second of banging the limiter because I'll make it up in spades for the other four or five times of leaving a feature. And I'll bet money on that.

Additionally, keep in mind that the Falken Azenis Sport (and make sure that you ask for the Sport) is only available in limited sizes, whereas the MX has a little more diversity, especially in the larger sizes.]

One more thing -- make sure that you keep your fluids fresh, change them often and make sure to not just look under your hood before an event, get to know it. Chances are that you may break something if you don't, and it's better to spot a small pinhole in a radiator hose beforehand rather than smell it cooking in the middle of nowhere around 3:00 pm on a Sunday!

Whirling dervish of FFOG.