carnal

Question for those of you that use Kumho Tires:

I'm in the process of buying Kumho V700 tires. front are the 225/50 ZR 16, and rear are the 245/45 ZR 16. in addition, I'm buying a 4 set of Konig Reign wheels. they are of course the 16" size. however, they are 7" wide (16 x 7 designation). my question is whether or not the rear tires will fit well onto the 7" wide wheel. tirerack.com says that most buyers get staggered wheels (7.5" in the rear and 7" in the front). i'm buying the tires from discount tire and they say 7" wide wheel all around is not a problem.

the guys at discount certainly know more about wheels and tires than i, but i want to make sure that i'm not creating problems for myself later on. what do you guys think? am i over analyzing this issue? pls advise.

Mack

I'm no expert but I would think as long as the offset is correct and the tire fits properly on the wheel you shouldn't have a problem. Don't see why you should have any fitment/rubbing problems as long as your car is still running the stock suspension set up.

Disclaimer....I'm a newbie at this so don't be suprised if I'm totaly off base here!!! I'm sure one of the veteran races well have something to say about this too

CG

If you are going to run in AS you can't run these wheels. As far as I know there are no aftermarket wheels legal for our car in in AS.

marcucci

7" wide rims all around aren't a "problem," but if you do that I wouldn't bother with the 245's in back (stick with 225s). My reasoning for this is that you will only lay down a 225 contact patch with the 245 on the 7" rim. I had this problem with my Prelude, running a 225 on a 6.5" rim. When I switched to a 7" rim, the difference was night and day in terms of grip and handling.

I'd suggest the staggered rims if you can afford them. If you want to keep tire wear to a minimum (by rotating) then I'd go for the 7" all around with 225s. I don't think this will upset the handling much, and certainly no more than a 245 would on a 7" rim.

j2k

the 245 Kumho is already a poor fit on the stock wheel which is 7.5" wide... putting it on a 7" rim is only going to make things worse. I can guarantee that you wont be "getting your moneys worth" by trying to stuff a 245 on that 7" rim. A 225 is really a much better fit on a 7" rim. But going to a race tire on a S2000 you *really* want to make sure you keep that stagger.

Stick the race rubber on the stock wheels and use the Konig's for the streets. (Though I pretty hesitant to suggest that as well.)

carnal

very good information guys...thank you all very much for your thoughts and insights. i have adjusted my order and instead have purchased the Voxx MGR wheels. the size is 16x7.5 (114.3mm bolt pattern). i'm going ahead with the kumho 225 in front and 245 in the rear tires.

any thoughts?

mark

The only wheels I know of that are legal for AS are the BBS wheels made for the car, I got mine from MG Racing. As for tires, Gary Thomason (national champion in S 2000) told me the correct size Kumhos are 225&245. That's the setup I've been running, and with the Mugen front bar, the car is very neutral. I've had no clearance problems with the bigger tires.

ronbauer

I would avoid getting any wheels for the car that are not staggered front to rear by at least an inch. The handling of the car goes to oversteer very easily by putting any tire on the car besides the stock S02s. I would definitely not recommend using the same size tire front and rear.

BTW, be careful with Discount Tire and their "it will fit the car" line. Joe Goeke bought a set of 17s for his car and the rear sticks out way too much. He gets rubbing on the fender! The S2000 has a lot of wheels that will technically fit, but there don't really seem to be many (if any) wheels that fit the car correctly.

Ron

carnal

I have modified my tire/wheel order again...only slightly. i plan to put the kumho (225 front/245 wheel) tires on the stock wheels. i will put my stock tires (SO-2) on the new Voxx MRG wheels. this will also allow for SCCA AS classification. in addition i have purchased a comptech front strut bar, to keep a more neutral feel to the car.

BTW, at yesterday's autocross, i ran pretty well and i am fairly comfortable with the feel and handling of the car. as far as the new tires and comptech bar are concerned...this is my plan. during the next autox, i plan to run completely stock, except for the comptech bar. then i plan to put the new tires on the car in conjunction with the comptech bar and run autox again. i'm making the mods in this order to try and understand how the car handling will change with each modification. the goal is obviously to improve the handling vs. stock, but also to incrementally understand how the mods effect the car.

any thoughts?

j2k

are you talking about adding a Comptech strut bar (or more accurately a "shock tower brace") or a sway bar? They're two very different things... the strut brace is going to have a fairly minimal effect on the handling of the car. It's the front sway bar that I think you really want.