chpmnsws6

iTrader: (12)

Flares on the Miata were the worst thing I have ever done to any car I've ever owned.

Waiting on autokonexion's new front fenders.

Savington- 225 R888's and 15x10's gay? If so, I'll continue my gay traditions, as that's the route I'm heading. Emilio finally talked me out of the 235's through Mike.

MatosMiata

Well . . . this car is clearly a flamer. . . not so sure about flares anymore rofl.

charchri4

No one ever responded to this but I would like to hear what people think about that. I have a set of flairs and am on the fence about putting them on. You can't get any decent street tire wider than 225 so I'd have to go to 0 offset to fill them up. I'm kind of wondering what the point doing that is now...

chpmnsws6

iTrader: (12)

Like Sav said long ago, anything under a 275 and flares are rice.

Rocwandrer

You are under 25, right? Modifications to an automobile should be to fix a flaw that existed before the modification, given your intended purpose. If you enjoy shopping for crap to glue to your car to change the look so it is "unique" for the sake of unique, or whatever, that's fine, most people don't actually care what you do.

charchri4

I'm well past 25 and whether people care or not what I do to the car I appreciate their opinion on the matter. I'm quite sure everyone on this forum has more Miata experience than I do and I ask the question in sincerity to hopefully not make a mistake that could have been easily avoided and that I can't undo.

The reason I picked up the flairs was to run 15x10 race rubber thinking I would just run 0 off set for street tires to fill them up for DD. The reason I am second guessing that idea is some of the events I run is not worth the trouble of swapping tires and it is an equally viable option to just run decent performance tires on 15x9 6ULs all the time.

Rocwandrer

well why didn't you ask that then?

PeteD

Flares are great. I think it enhances the Miata's look exponentially when done right. Miata's just don't look aggressive enough until they are a bit lower to the ground and tires are a bit wider.

highrideTOY

i don't like the way the flares look. I like a miata lower with a bit wider tire. i think the flares take away from the looks and lines of the miata.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Assume you were running man meat tires. What flares would you run in the back? I'm thinking something like the autokonexion N2 rears since they go way down the front and seem to block more of the front of the tire than anything else I've seen.

wannafbody

iTrader: (1)

AK N2 rear flares with the frotn Aero fenders would probably look good. One issue I noticed with flared some Miata's is that the front flares look higher than the rear flares.

Vilko

Ignoring everything else. If you have the same wheels and tyres and then space them out 2 inches, what effect would this have on handling? I imagine the effect would be different front to rear...

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

It'll change the length to width ratio making the car more square and easy to over rotate. It'll also increase scrub and steering effort. If you only spaced out the front and left the rear narrow it would REALLY make the car want to rotate. If you only spaced out the rear it would make the rears fight rotation more. Also wheel bearing wear increases.

charchri4

Miatas are designed for +36 off set wheels and anything below about +25 pushes the scrub radius beyond the limit the suspension can absorb so it affects handling. That being said lots of guys run 0 or even - off set just fine. It's just not the way the car was designed so it will not give you optimum performance.

Vilko

Thanks for the reply leafy. That's similar to what I had heard but its good to have someone confirm it for our cars too. I'll take this into account when I mess around with my spare miata.

I'm going to ignore this comment because you seem to think that Mazda designed this car to be fast on a track with 200+hp on wide semi slicks. When, to me, they seem to have designed it to be fun on the street with 100hp on skinny tyres.

charchri4

I don't see why you would read that into my comment, I simply stated the facts and it has nothing to do with what I think about the cars.

Miatas were designed with a 130 hp motor and 14x6 +36 offset wheels. I answered the question about adding 2" spacers to it which would push the offset to about -30. It has nothing to do with street or track or HP of the car the fact is a 2" spacer would significantly impact the handling of the car.

zbrown

Super gay on the street, especially with stock wheels.


But you can learn to live with them when you start getting FTD at every event you go to.


Like Sav said, if you're not running 275 or bigger don't waste your time.

Vilko

I read that you kept mentioning the cars initial design and that it would not give "optimum performance". If these cars were designed for optimum performance we wouldnt modify them.
I'm sure it would "impact" the handling, but I havent spaced out the same wheels 2 inches and done before and after testing. So I'm not entirely sure what that impact would be. And I cant help but think that spacing out the stock wheels on a stock miata will be slightly different than doing the same thing to a car with different ride height, camber, spring rates, castor, sticky tyres and double the stock power. And I could be wrong here, but once you take camber into account it might be slightly different for a 5" wide wheel compared to a 10" which makes offset numbers without widths a bit dubious to me. Thats why the broad statement you made about performance seemed like more of a guess than an experience or explanation. But if you do have experience or data or something can you please explain HOW performance would be affected not just that it would be?

Follow up question, I've read that pushing the wheels out would make the ride

charchri4

OK I'll tell you what the impact will be. A 2" spacer WILL make the car ride like crap, steer much harder and plow like crazy in the corners. Why? Because it makes the radius the control arms travel significantly larger than they should be both up and down and front to back. The result of the bigger up and down arc is way more corner camber than you want. See how much the red car in photo above has with a good set up? Well a +2" spacer would have much less tire on the road on the inside wheel.
The result of larger front /rear control arm arc is the outside tire is much farther forward of the inside tire than it should be. So looking at the radius from the top of the steering a stock turn would have the wheels mostly accross from each other like this:

/-=-/

and a 2" spacer turn would push the tires forward on the outside and rearward on the inside something like this:

/
-=-
...../

That is much exaggerated but will give you the idea of pushing the outside tire forward in a turn is a very big deal to performance in handling. A 2" spacer would blow that radius off the chart and make the car very unstable.

But probably the worst thing is you are pushing your scrub radius way wider than it should be and you would basically be loosing most of the grip form the outside 2" of your tires. See here to understand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_radius


Look you absolutely can put 2" spacers in the car and have a perfectly functional car. It will go, it will stop and it will turn. All I am saying is it will not do any of that it as well as it should because the suspension gemoetry is so far out of whack from how it was designed to function. With the exact same power and suspension a +36mm offset will smoke you in the corners all day long. If you doubt me I'd be glad to demonstrate if you are anywhere near the road course in Omaha but I can assure you all you will see is my tail lights getting farther away after each turn.

And by the way wheel width has no impact whatsoever on offset. An 8" wheel with a +36 offset simply adds 1" to each side of stock +36 6" wheel thus the offset retains exactly the same at +36. One has nothing to do with the other.

I hope I do not sound crabby or full of myself here. I don't mean to be either, I just want you to understand a 2" spacer will kill your handeling.

money

In my research If you aren't 10 wide, then dont do it, lol