[dradernh]

My car is being readied for the track, and we're having what must be a common issue with wheels and tires: putting together a wheel & tire package where the tires are wide enough to take advantage of at least most of the car's power and where the wheel & tire sizes are the same at all four corners.

Before going into it further, I'd like to run either the Toyo R888R or the Nitto NT01. I won't run a street tire, and I don't want to run an R7, R1, or something like that. The combination of grip and heat cycle-life that those "in-betweener" tires offer is what I'm after.

We'd like to run an 18X9½ with the Toyo R888R 255/35-18. The Apex ARC-8 comes in that size with ET 58, which will fit in the back. Whether it can be made to fit in the front is the question. We'll have to do a test fit to find out, but I'm wondering if anyone has fit a combination like this in the front of a 2-Series. If so, can you share your spacer size, spring diameter, and anything you had to do to make it fit: e.g., roll the fenders, delete the fender liners, or run negative camber greater than -2.5° (which I don't want to do, because I'm going to run the same camber on the street and the track).

Even if you haven't run a combo that large up front, can you share the largest combo that you found would fit, especially if you or your shop made every effort to mount the largest tire that could be put in the available space in front without compromising the intended function of the installation.

FWIW, this is not going to be a track car. It's a street car that will be used to instruct advanced students 4-6 days per year. It will be set up to run well at my 8/10ths, and lap times won't be a consideration.

Other options under consideration:

1) Run 17X9s with the Nitto NT01 255/40-17. We haven't found a 17X9 with an offset that will work in the rear, so we'd need to have something custom-made, which is a last resort as far as insisting upon a square setup goes.

2) Run staggered 18s rear and front. As simple as that sounds, we immediately run into issues with tire diameter. Logically, with a 255 in the back we'd want a 245 up front, but the R888R 245/40-18 is 25.7" in diameter, and we don't think that will fit the front. The non-255 18" Toyo/Nitto that would clearly fit in front are 225/235, and that's too narrow.

3) Run staggered with 18X9½ in the rear and 17X9 up front. That would allow us to run an R888R 245/40-17 up front to go with the 255/35-18 in the rear. Arguably this is the simplest way to go if the 18X9½ with 255/35-18 won't fit up front.

Any relevant experience or thoughts or insights you may have will be most appreciated.