Ok so i finally ditched the factory 17 inch wheels and bought a set of new 16x8 rota grid-v wheels with 20 offset. Check it out. My car is lowered on tein springs and has zero rubbing issues in the front. The back rubs a little but not bad. Im using 205/50/16 kumho tires. Im not useing any spacers or special lug bolts. Just factory bolts. And the front jcw calipers barely made it lol. Such a small gap before it would have clearance issues with the wheel. The ride is 100 times better then before. Putting more rubber on was a better idea. i was using 215/45/17 before btw. Old ones (r98) bbs are for sale if anyone is interested let me know.
thanks.








P.S. im waiting for my jcw center cap stickers to come in lol.

 

Good to hear that everything fits OK more or less.

You had 215/45-17 tires on 17x7" wheels

and changed to 205/50-16 tires on 16x8" wheels.

You got a "better ride" from changing to new tires (I assume Kumho ecsta 4X) on wider wheels.

You didn't really put on "more rubber" since you mounted a tire 10mm more narrow. It's the wider 8" wheel that allowed the narrow tire to stretch to fit thus giving you a little more clearance and reduced the risk for rubbing.

Had you gone with a 225 mm wide tire that normally goes with an 8" wide rim you would get rubbing. 225/50-16 is too tall and wide.

205/50-16 fits rims 5.5-7.5" wide ideally and is a perfect fit for a 6.5" rim.
8" rims can fit tires up to about 235 to 245 mm wide but none come in 16" wheel diameter sizes for the MINI.

As for tire stretch you can also mount a 195/55-16 tire on the 16x8" rim, it would just be more extreme than what you did.

In any event, thanks for posting the pictures.

 

thanks for comments. by "more rubber" i meant from wheel rim to ground. my ride is softer less of hard bang to your ***. lol

 

More sidewall rubber?

Gotcha.

Yeah, I have 17" wheels and tires for performance driving and street 15" wheels and tires to save my passengers from rattling out their fillings.

 

That's actually nice looking fitment. And 205 on an 8 is optimal

 

Pretty! And, I bet that setup works very well too.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Also outside of manufacture's specs.