Yeah I had a feeling XP10's might be way more than I need. I'm focusing on getting a lot more track experience first starting next spring. Hopefully I'll have a better job by then so I can actually afford to do full HPDE weekends. Gonna buy some better tires then too, probably some RE-11's.

I'm still on the skinny stock advan's 225 front 245 rear ...

ouch^, the car is a complete different beast once u upgrade!!, I currently run 275/35/19 square, might move up to 285...

Might not need super aggressive brakes yet then. Just something to think about. :tiphat:

I'm running the base 18's and am thinking about buying another pair of rears (to put up front) so I can run a square setup on mine with 275/18's all around. Don't have money for a whole new set of wheels + tires, but I think this will work pretty well.

The XP10 definitely feels a lot better than the XP8, pedal is stiffer and it feels a lot more responsive. I just had a feel of near fade with the XP8 for some odd reason, probably due to the less responsive pedal. I didn't run into ice mode quite as easy, which is good.

b1adesofcha0s, if you ever get some 19" rims, i will donate some re11s to you. I am going to swap my front ones probably within two months

Appreciate it! I'll have to see what my job situation is like, since that's the only thing keeping me back right now. I'm working as an intern and I just graduated from school this past Spring. Hoping to get a job as a full time engineer soon and I should be good after that. I might look into some wheels after that. Any recommendations for cheap lightweight 19" wheels? I was thinking maybe the sport package or Nismo wheels.

Honestly though, I'm still just a beginner. The only thing I really need is more track time and experience. The less money I spend on mods, the more I can spend on HPDE's.

It's fine. I have a set of tires that are still good for a few more days, but not good enough to sell to make money. I might as well give it to a good home as I will never use them again

Yeah I'd be DD'ing with them anyway so probably better if I get a new set. What do you think about the square set up with the base wheels? Would be a lot cheaper than a whole new set of wheels and tires would be cheaper to replace in 18's vs 19's.

You can do it, you will probably only be able to do 265 or something. I have a feeling 265/35/18 or 265/40/18 is a hard size to find tires though.

Will 275's not fit up front? I have 265/40/18 on my rears right now with the RE050A's. It's a hard size to find with used tires, but they are available new in those sizes for the RE-11's.

If I understand correctly, this square setup should help dial out understeer and help the car rotate better in the turns, right?

You don't want to put too much tire onto a skinny wheel; ie 275s (275mm=10.8 inches) on the 8" front base wheels. They won't be well supported and will roll over the rim more easily. Best case is terrible camber wear on the outsides.

265/285 on nismo wheels is almost neutral and without a good camber option on the front is the best I could do for wear right now. The primary function of a square setup is to allow you to rotate tires front to rear to even out wear. To do that effectively means using the same size wheels front and back, which then calls for spacers in the rear. In the meantime you are giving up potential grip by not running larger rears. The Z is blessed with an excellent capacity for MOAR TIRE. With stock weight distribution and plenty of power to put down I don't see the major appeal of matching front to back.

tldr Beef up the fronts, but keeping a stagger will see the best performance.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I'd be running a set of 4 base rear wheels, which are 18x9 and 275's fit just fine on them. I had 275's on my last set of rears and they were fine. I could also do the same wheel setup with 265 F and 275 R for a little bit of stagger without fitment issues (assuming I can't just fit 275's up front).

Also, sorry for hijacking your thread Craig. You could probably make use of all this information too since you're also running the base wheels. I can start a separate thread for this discussion if you like.

Isn't Nismo wheels 9.5/10.5? If I can run 285 all around on my 9/10, you can easily do 295 all around on yours. I am getting better wear on my 285F than my 265F, but I think it has to do with the fact the car understeers a lot less and I am not using so much steering to compensate. The 370 is front heavy to start, the bigger the front tires, the better the car will turn and drive. I do 285 because 275/30 and 295/30 puts the car too low and 295/35 is too high and it is a stretch on a 9" front rim. It has nothing to do with rotation, but I did keep the 285 from my first set as spares.

I don't have a direct comparison of the two tires in terms of lap times since I haven't done the same tracks with the two different setup. There are too many variables in autox to say, but my gut feeling tells me the car feels better (probably adds up to like .2 sec in terms of times). My average finish position also went slightly higher too, but that probably has more to do with competition than anything else. I got 200 runs on my 265/285, I am approaching 170 runs on my 285 and they look like they got about 40-50 runs left.

275 on a 9 is fine, I wouldn't do it on a 8.