people are just all high and might about their SC's, multiple people on this forum run xxr wheels. its been debated 1000000x on so many forums about the quality of expensive wheels and cheaper wheels, weight is the biggest difference. any wheel can break. the way i see it is i wouldn't spend $4000 on wheels unless i could really afford it because if those bad boys messed up i would be heart broken. my $1000 wheels if i hit a curb i nod my head but i dont really care to much

worst thing about xxr wheels is the lips are not really polished, its a cap they put on but they look fine. xxr's are cast wheels which many wheels are under a certain price range.

 

^ what he side besides the end. imo worst part about xxr are dual bolt pattern. its friggin tacky. outside of that.. yea. do what you want without walking on egg shells

 

i droped mine 3 inchs with 18x9.5 in the fron and steer pretty good hasn't changed much

my rims setups up it prety light

work meister s1,
ssr garthmeir
stern st8

 

I'm pretty sure not a single person has actually answered this guys question.

Q: Will bigger wheels ruin the handling?
A: In terms of ride comfort and "luxury", yes. You will notice that the ride will become stiffer because its a mixture of the SC's suspension and 16" tires that give it a softer ride. With an 18" wheel, the tire has less sidewall and thus less "suspension" or "bounce". Its kinda hard to explain so maybe someone else can chime in.
In terms of cornering and handling, upgrading to an 18" or even a 17" or 19" will improve your cars cornering ability because tires with a shorter sidewall have more side-to-side strength which will help in reducing body roll.
The key thing here though is the offset of your wheels. The further apart your tires are (left and right) the wider your stance is and the wider your stance is, the lower your cernter of mass is. For example, the oem wheels on the SC are 16"x7" with a +50 offset. On my SC400 I have 18"x8" Nissan 350Z wheels which have a +35 offset. With the oem wheels being closer together the car will feel more top heavy, whereas with the Nissan 350Z wheels, the cars center of mass becomes lower to the ground which reduces the top heavyness. Make sense?

Q: Will bigger wheels damage, ruin, or harm my suspension?
A: Again this depends on the offset of your new wheels. I'm not sure if there's any proven data out there for the SC but basically, the further you wheels are from the hub, or the more offset your wheels are, the more stress is put on your hub, axles and control arms. The SC's suspension can handle a more offset wheel but only to a certain extent. Again, I don't have any exact data but I know DaveGS4 has more info about it if he'd like to chime in.

Oh, and by the way, OEM tire size is 225/55/16 which translated has an overall diameter of 25.74 inches. And a 245/40/18 translated has an overall diameter of 25.72 inches. If you don't understand what that means then you should just leave your cars wheels and tires alone.

 

^ That pretty much clears up any questions i might have. Thanks Matt. I plan to do 18". Thanks for posting the wheel sizes, that made my life a lot easier (yes i know what they mean :P ) . Now all thats left for me is to figure out what offset to use. There is a thread on the forum for the wheel fitments. Would it be safe to assume that the offsets listed in that thread are pretty safe to use? or should i do more research than that?

 

Put it this way, don't go too overboard. With 9.5" in the rear id say no more than +30 maybe +25. For 8.5" up front, I definitely wouldn't go anymore than +40 maybe +35. My 350Z wheels are 8" with a +35 and they sit perfectly flush with the body up front. Any wider and they'd stick out.

Honestly, I'm not really an expert on how to make you're wheels sit perfectly flush. When it comes to wheels and tires I'm more of a "function over fashion" kinda guy.