Will a 215/45/17 fit on an 8" rim

to start with I would be concerned about your roll center if you have the car low enough that you can’t fit the wheels. But my other thought is that you’re running wheels that don’t really fit your car without modifications that you haven’t done. If your wheels were not as wide then you could probably run more tire (more traction). Yeah I know in the fast and furious world going as low as possible with as much camber as you can get is ideal… but there are limits and compromises that you have to balance to get a good overall setup. a stretched tire might feel like it delivers crisp turn in but it really lowers the overall traction on an already thin tire. Going to a softer compound (which is what I assume you’re talking about when you say “more aggressive”) won’t help you at all really. Also think about braking - when you brake 70%+ of the load is going onto the front tires which are skinny and unhappy already so they will hurt your braking distances by a lot. So in effect by going to a wheel that is too wide you’ve lowered your available traction at the front no matter how you look at it. might make the car more tail happy, but not really going to make you “faster”