Folks,

Just wanted to get an up to date perspective on this. I have an '04 G35 RWD with stock suspension. I have 18" 350z track wheels that currently have worn out 245/45R18s on back and 225/45R18 on front.

Should I just go 245/45R18s all around or keep it staggered? Any risk to keeping it the same all around? My intention is go with with the Conti Extreme Contact DW tires.

 

keep 'em staggered, no reason not to

 

A staggered setup will understeer more.

One possible issue with the 245's in front is rubbing on the spindle (?) arm. I have 06 sport wheels (18 x 7.5) with 245/45/18's and have less then 1/4" of clearance on the inside. I'm not sure about offsets and whatnot for your wheels.

I like having a square setup for even handling and ease of tire rotation, but if those things aren't important, you might save a few bucks on the 225's.

 

Thanks!

I'll stick with staggered ... ORRRRRR .. maybe SDGz will hook me up with a sweet deal on that awesome ride of his.

 

hahah, thanks... i'll sell it for $20.00 OBO, LOL

 

I'd suggest going with either 225/45R18 in the front and 245/40R18 out back or 245/40R18 all around. This setup keeps overall diameters the same front and back. 245/45s are about .7" taller and look a bit tall, IMO. I'm running on the 225/45R18 and 245/40R18 setup on my 03 and it looks great. Just enough rubber to look meaty and not like rubber bands while not making the wheel gaps larger. I have 18X8 rims all around and the rear tire width is about .6" wider than the fronts. Yes, a stagger can increase understeer, but this amount of stagger is minimal and can help alleviate some of the oversteer tendencies of the car.

 

I run 245/45-18's on Coupe Wheels in the summer, and those are similar to your track wheels (offset and width), and I haven't had any problems at all. I wanted a slightly oversized tire, not an undersized set like DaveB recommends (personal choice). You won't rub on anything running 245's. It won't be staggered, but you will be able to swap tires front to back so they wear consistently (tires, not wheels).

 

Using the Miata.net calculator and a stock size of 235/45/18, the tire sizes are as follows:

Stock Diameter: 26.3"
1) 245/40/18 New Diameter 25.7". A 0.6" difference.
2) 245/45/18 New Diameter 26.7". A 0.4" difference.

Neal from the Tirerack has said he's seen VDC problems arise from 0.5" over or under stock diameter.

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

 

I have Bridgestone RE760 Sport in 245/45/18 on my sedan with coupe 7 spoke 18's. All is fine without any rubbing, but I have yet to install my Z suspension set up.

I was strongly leaning to get the 245/40/18, but Neal from TR recommended the 245/45/18 to help with the tire gap issue. I am waiting a little while longer to for the Z setup install for my tires (1yr old) can wear down a bit. Time will tell if I made the right choice once on tire size.

 

I'll post up some pics of my 225/45r18 and 245/40r18 setup soon. I'm running Sumitomo HTRIII which are only about .4" shorter than stock. The gap size didn't increase and the tire to rim ratio looks far better than the 235/45s I ran previously. A set of 245/45s would look even more balloon like because they're even taller than the 235/45s which match the oem diameter.

 

I'm running that exact set-up on my '03 6MT sedan--For sale, btw:
(245/45/18 Conti Extreme contact DW w/ staggered 350Z V1 track wheels). I have the same size tires on all 4 wheels (even though obviously 2 are 8" and the other 2 are 8.5"s).

No issues at all


bryman

 

I run the 245/40 and 225/45 on my track wheels as well, but that is because it is what came on the them when I bought them..
it does look good like this, I havent decieded if I am going to switch to 45's when I wear these out.

 

+1


bryman

 

225/45R18 and 245/40R18 setup. Front tire width is 9.1" and rear is 9.6". Tires are on 18X8 rims at all corners.





The reasons I went with staggered tires this go around was because:

1) My car has exhibited the infamous front tire feathering issue ever since installing Z springs over 6 years ago. No matter what alignment setting, it still feathers the front tires to a degree. I use to rotate the tires front to back and then side to side. When I did this, the end result was I got 4 tires with various stages of feathering over time. For the past few years, I've just been doing cross swapping the fronts and rears. By cross swapping the fronts, I can knock down some of the feathered edges of the tires.

2) The stagger was an experiment to see if I could reduce a slight amount of oversteer on the auto-x. I figured since the Zs, coupes, and 2nd gen G all run staggered tires, I'd give it a shot.

3) I didn't want to risk any VDC issues running 225/45R18 in the front and 245/45R18 out back. This is the stock setup for the coupe and Z, but the diameters between the two are nearly .8". I'm not certain the ABS/VDC system in the 03/04 sedan is smart enough to deal with this diameter difference and not throw a CEL or worse activate the VDC in the wrong situation.