instead of powder coating, find a connection at some place that sells rims and get some lightweights for about 4 or 500, lose roughly 100 lbs or more off your wheel load. each wheel is 50 lbs. stock. buy a lightweight 17 inch at 12 lbs a piece, total weight with tire about 25 lbs (at most), and lose a total of 100 lbs. not only is the weight off you cars, but its that much less your tranny has to spin. so its a very important 100 lbs. every 100 lbs is about a tenth of a second or so, and since its less weight your tranny has to spin, your looking at probably 2 tenths of a second. thats the difference between 13.2 and maybe even hitting a 12.9. how nice would that be....(with other mods of course...)
each tire weights 49lbs with the tire mounted. they are CRAAAZY heavy! it was sort of stupid for mazda to put 18 inch rims on this car. it would have been a lot better if they decided to put a light weight 17 inch rim and you would see a lot better performance out of the car. i guess its more aesthetically pleasing to the eye though. plus you can say your car has 18's. it really does look good. im just saying....thats a lot of weight.
EDIT: I just saw somewhere they weight about 28 lbs a piece. I saw somewhere else a while back they weighted like 48 49 lbs but im going to keep checking into it.
EDIT AGAIN: I found on this forum someone who claims the rim weights 24 lbs. He switched to an 18 lb rim. I just dont know if that was with the tire mounted or not. hmm....i give up. anyone???