Dick your pics don't work for me.
John, agreed nothing is better than the RE71R for our cars. The RS3 and Z2 are slower regardless of any measured tread width differences at those differences. Keep in mind, IMO, the 1LE is a better autox car than the Mustang, I just prefer to own an S550.
A. How many sets of 18" tires do you have to buy before you pay for that diff gear change compared to buying 19" tires. $200/set difference.
B. You are in the wrong thread.
C. When it's lowered 18s look fine to me.
Yes in theory it should promote understeer and hurt aero.
But it wouldn't change weight front to rear hardly at all. If you every play with a car on scales with adjustable perches you can do a lot for cross weights and nearly zero relative front to rear.
Stuff like that I've found really hard to tell the difference. Two reasons, one is fear the ABS computer will freak out and engage prematurely. Second is for the "free" lowering.
I actually just talked with Sam, you should give him a call if you are interested in this. Yes the idea is to run 3rd. If it fails to prove faster, they will be very good for wets.
You have the wrong tire size in mind for the rear. :)
I'm not worried about the tire rubbing so much as the 18x9 barrel/spokes on ET38 offset not clearing the PP brembos to be FS legal. No one is dumb enough to be running this yet that I can find so I'm thinking of blazing that trail.
As for the stagger, the 1LE and Mustang don't really have any understeer issues I would contribute to the wheel stagger. I'm somewhat tempted to run a 1LE next year for part of the year to see how the new tire sizes change things for that car (20mm more tire, shorter gearing).
How much room is there if the wheel was 2" narrower as in an 18x9, ET38 offset on the CF5? I can't figure out if it will work and its a $300+ experiment to find out.
Forgestar CF5 in 19x9 ET38-40mm/19x95 ET46-50
Stranoparts.com can get you those, I'll be ordering some myself but I did run my OEMs just fine at Nationals. Also I ran 275s square so I could rotate/flip the tires around.
No bolt on strut options for the fronts yet. Rears are out there, so far...
My Day 1 Run 1 in the wet run. Dug this up as others were looking at theirs and I was curious how it looked since I recall having two major mistakes but was good enough for 3rd after first runs. I've done all of maybe 6 or 7 autoxes in the wet since I started in 2000 because it rarely rains...