My car is pretty much stock outside of the brake duct cooling and aftermarket brake rotors and pads. I was doing quite a bit of autocrossing and track stuff on the stock wheels and the setup works well. I have grown used to this now.
However, I have been getting a little nervous using my stock wheels for all of these events. I know that they are plenty strong, but I just thought I could save them from getting nicked up so much.
I figured I would look for a reasonable set of tires for track use, but also maybe get another set of wheels for track use. I know, it is a slippery slope. I heard so much about using the same size wheel all around as a great setup so I went with this. However, I went a different direction with the wheels. The wheels didn't need to be pretty.
There was group by
on Bimmer forums for the Apex ARC-8 wheel. I was actually able to get them member Fast ///M along with some spacers for fitment. A few specifications:
1.) 17"x9"
2.) 17 lbs each
3.) Fit over the stock brakes (they also fit over the Brembo brake setup on Fast ///M's car)
4.) Designed for E36 in terms of offset so if it really doesn't work out, could sell to E36 track enthusiast.
For the wheels, I thought I would try a fairly new tire that came out from Nitto, the NT 05. It seemed fairly reasonable in price and with the square setup on all four corners, I could rotate the front to rear wheels in between events. The wheels are 275/40-17. They look like they have a pretty sizeable tread pattern. They actually fell pretty good on the street. With the taller sidewall, I wasn't sure how much the steering response would change. So far it feels very good.
Here are a couple of pictures of the tire (borrowed from Discount Tire).
Here are a few pictures of the wheels on my car.
My car is the second car in.
I will be headed to Road America in a couple of weeks. I'll give an update on how they workout.
(Wheeeee...)
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