thetrain

I recently and finally got around to getting my wheels on. They are 19" BBS Replicas. Someone had put 225s on them, to fit under an MK5 or 6 Golf. Looked tiny as heck on my D2 S8 with stock suspension. I commute 60 miles a day so lowering was not an option for me. Plus I didnt want to risk denting the rims.

A smoking deal came up locally on some Eagle F1s that were misordered for a Porsche. 265/40/R19 .....They are about an inch wider than stock 245s, aka roughly 3% wider, and 2ish% taller. (yay less miles on the speedo! haha)

The BBS reps are 35 offset, -13 from stock. The 10mm Trak+ adapter from ECS/HnR BARELY gets you to clear the caliper. My fingernail barely fits in between the caliper and spokes. No rubbing on the caliper, and the tires clear the fender wheels all the way around, full lock. Lastly, the tires are almost perfectly flush, barely inside the outer fender lip when the suspension compresses. I was more than happy to see this after all the math and guessing, and being new at fitting a setup like that.

I have had 3 total people in the car, no rubbing. (we all weigh less than 200 though). The only time it has rubbed was at highway speeds in Minneapolis hitting a huge sunken road crack. I have roughly 1" of gap(maybe a tad more) with the car parked flat.

Anyway, I had seen some people say they fit 20s on A8s(taller suspension) but I had not heard anything about 265s fitting on D2s in Pauls stuff, or on the forums, so I thought I would share. Hope it helps!

Y888

I want these 20s,you can only buy them from Germany.I havent seen them for sale in usa.20X9

twentysevenlitres

In my mind a 19" on the D2 is the best compromise between ride, style and handling.
Yours is the first fitment I've seen with 265's and with such an aggressive offset.
A couple of blokes are running 275's, but from what I've seen the offset is much more conservative (ET45 or 48).

There's plenty of blokes running 20's on S8's, they were factory fitment in 2002/03. You should be able to find reps in the US - take a look at Hartmann.
Provided offset is the same, and you pick the correct profile, where's the fitment issue?!

BrianC72gt

Only issue with excessive offset is the center of your contact patch is now outside the center point dictated by your kingpin angle. The what you say? Viewed from the front...or the back... the king pin angle (or the spindle's axis of inclination) is an imaginary line drawn top down through the outer pivot point of the upper control arms, then the outer pivot point of the lower control arms, then into the pavement. It tilts so the bottom is farther away from the car's centerline than the top. Ideally, the center of your tire's contact patch should intersect with this line where it hits the ground. Move excessively from this point and you put undue wear on wheel bearings and suspension bushings. It can also give you some unpredictable movements when, say, encountering an irregular bumpy surface around a turn.

All said, tires with a larger diameter will allow you to push the wheel outward slightly and still keep the geometry ideal.

twentysevenlitres

Ooh, steering geometry does my head in!
As well as the kingpin angle, you also have your Ackerman angle which is a triangle that can be drawn between the each kingpin and the centre of the rear axle line (can be more complicated, but we'll stick with Newtonian physics here). To give correct lateral front wheel placement during steering, the tie rods must be on the line from the kingpin to the rear axle. This will make the inner wheel give a more acute angle than the outer wheel on a curve.
Wheel offset is less affected by Ackerman angle though, as any increase or decrease along the axle line largely keeps the wheel angles the same.

Tyre width too is largely irrelevant for a given offset, as the centre of the tyre will be in the same place regardless of width. I can picture the effect increased (or decreased) tyre diameter might make, but it will be very small for the 5% or so profile difference.

Then of course we can start throwing Audi's virtual steering axis into the mix which alters geometry about the steering angles and supposedly gives a nett zero camber change about the steering range. I wonder how that effects kingpin angle?

Factory offsets for Audi 'A' cars seem to range from +45 to +35 (and something like +25 on the RS and Allroad models), without any apparent changes to the steering geometry. A 10mm tolerance?