Tyres, Tyres, Tyres..................

[Duk]

I need tyres for my 75, but what I'm after seems to now be very thin on the ground  .

Because I want a wider, light and strong wheel, I decided to make Series 6 Mazda RX7 wheels work (hub adapters).
These rims are 16x8 with a +50 offset and I want to use 225/45/16 tyres with them. Unfortunately that size tyre seems to very much nonexistent now.
When I bought these wheel, they came with (some decent condition Dunlop) 225/50/16 tyre. With my 20mm thick front hub adapters, there is no way they will fit in the front wheel wells with anything more than about 1/2 a turn of steering lock.
I'd guess that even without changing the offset via the hub adapters (new wheel hubs that had 5x114.3 PCD), they would still hit the front of the sill panel/box section area.

***Incidentally, even with tyres that are much larger in diameter and wider than the original alloy Alfa wheel and tyre that is the spare in my car (my car came with after market 17s when I bought it), the RX7 wheel and over sized (for the Alfa) tyre is noticeably lighter  .*** 

So I'm open to suggestions of tyre suppliers or other methods to fix my dilemma, so long as they include the use of 225mm wide tyres on a 16" rim.
I am even prepared to be as dramatic as to 'make room ( )' at the back of the front wheel wells to allow me to use 225/50/16 tyres.........

[shiny_car]

Seems an odd size, eh. Falken list them available in the FK452...but that doesn't mean they're readily available.
http://www.falkentyres.com.au/tyres/passenger-FK452.html

[Victor Lee]

As a guide, have a look at Tirerack in the USA -
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?customSizeSearch=&width=225%2F&ratio=45&diameter=16

Toyo Proxes R1R
BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW 2
Toyo Proxes R888 (Track & Comp)
Yokohama ADVAN A048 (Track & Comp)

We actually run this exact size 225/45/16 on 16x8 on our Alfetta GTV6 in Dunlop DZ03's (R Tyre)

Dunlop also have DZSPZ1 in this size (Road tyre)

[pancho]

Tirerack.com are the cheapest way to get high performance tyres into Oz. Including shipping I saved myself about AU$430 on a set of Yoko Neova's.

[Duk]

Cheers guys.
Pancho, can you tell me what you paid in freight costs to get your tyres from America?

[pancho]

US$318 via FedEx

[MD]

Hey Dukted one..

I am even prepared to be as dramatic as to 'make room ( )' at the back of the front wheel wells to allow me to use 225/50/16 tyres.........

It's what I did on the Cab. Got same set up as you know.

[Duk]

Righto, some more info and ideas.

From what I've found, either the Dunlop's on my RX7 rims are a little bit odd in their size or they had massive tread depth and are worn heaps but still have sufficient tread left  . 'cause comparing the 225/50/16 Dunlop's VS some other 225/45/16 tyres that I could get actual diameter for (not online calculator numbers), shows the Dunlop's being very close to the 45 series tyres......

So Falken actually list diameter sizes for their ZE912 range, but they aren't exactly screaming too me that they are a performance tyre, but maybe that will be a good thing  .

So I've been toying with the idea of using either 215/40/16 or 225/40/16.

                       Overall                          Overall
                       Diam mm                       Width mm

215/40/16:     579                               218
225/40/16:     589                               228
195/55/15:     579                               200
(Orgn Spr)
205/40/17:     584                               219
(On Car)
225/50/16:     615                               245
(Dunlop's)

The Falken website lists the ZE91 in 225/50/16 as having a 635mm diameter, 20mm larger in diameter than the Dunlop's.

Either way, I'm thinking 225/40/16's will get me the amount of rubber that I want to have, on the road and give 13mm more clearance where I'm running out of room. Whether that's enough withe the 20mm thick hub adapters (gives an effective offset of +30), I don't know, but I doubt it  .