e30 wheels and tires

can anyone tell me how wide i can go on wheel width on 1989 325i on 15 or 16 inch wheels, thanks for any help you can give

With or without rolling the fenders?

I have seen people with 225s on the rear with I think 16" wheels, but I'm not sure how wide of a wheel that was.

will roll the fenders if need be to put more rubber on the ground

My question is why do you need more rubber? Racing? Styling? You can usually accomplish the same effect as more rubber just by buying better tires. If you are running an M20, then you don't need more than 205s if you buy a quality tire, so a 6.5-7" wheel should be fine. If you are upping the ante with FI, M/S50, or even crazier, you will want to roll the fenders and go with 225s on a 7-7.5" wheel. If you are insane and plan on something like 300HP, or just like the widebody look, go for a set of fender flares and go nuts. You will need to make sure you purchase the correct offset for the bump in width. Also remember that the wider and taller a wheel is, the heavier it is, so you pay a penalty with braking, acceleration, NVH, and handling. That's right, too big and/or wide and the car will handle worse than before.

Is your car stock? If so, it really won't be necessary... 205's do the trick very nicely.

But if you've got other goodies under the hood, that's a different story...

the reason for more rubber is for a s50 swap, just got rid of my e46 m3 and got the e30 and want to make it more spirited. and looks are important also just like the stance with a little wider tire, thanks for your help on this matter , im a noob to the e30

I am running 205s on my 318i with no problems on 15 inch rims. On my M3 I have 225s on 16 inch BBS RS rims, that are lighter than the 15 inch 205 stock setup. Also no rubbing issues, but it is an M3, so there is more room to begin with.

But generally speaking Paul is right regarding bigger is heaver. So don't go bigger than you need to. My 16 inch wheels and snow tires on my E36 are lighter than my 17 inch staggered summer tires. 225 front/245 rear.

Check out www.e30.de. The Germans are able to stuff some serious rubber under E30s. They seem to like the wide wheel/narrow tire look. So the rim sticks out further than the tire. Really have to watch the curbs with that setup.

Also known as tire stretching, and in my knowledge, serves no purpose other than looks. I think it looks dreadful when people do that, but that's just my opinion. Here is one example:

Thanks Botond. Yea I am not a big fan of the look either. Besides there is no protection for your rims from curbs etc.

I should mention the wheels on my M3 are 16x8. On a standard E30 you probably don't want to go wider than 7.5 or maybe 8. I would also not go larger than 16, but this is my opinion.

I run 16x9 et35 on mine and i did not roll my fenders...I am running 205-45-R16 they have MILD strech...nothing like the picture above.