SN95 Wheels & Tires, Recommendations?

Hi All,
About 4 months ago I bought a '94 Cobra and got some real good input here with some questions I had at the time, now I'm back hoping for more. Bad news is I haven't much time to spend on it, lent my "practical" car to a family member so the 'stang has been my daily driver. Good news is it's running great and with the holiday season over I'm gearing up to throw some money at it. I bought it from a guy who didn't know jack about it and it must've been an owner before him that did the modifications, so I'm piecing it together as things go along.

First order of business: It's got 18x10 inch rims with 245/40/18 all the way around so the tires have a slight stretch. The rims in the front are too wide and scrape on tight turns, which is what I'm hoping to eliminate. I plan to keep the rims on the back but get tires with a decent sidewall - any recommendations on what size would work well?

My concern in the front is that the car is lowered slightly and if I move to 18x9 with a decent sidewall I might scrape the tire against the inside of the wheel well on turns. So I was thinking about going to 17x8 on the front with 245/45/17... Any recommendations on how I can make sure that will fit? This weekend or next I'll be able to pull them off and do some measurements in the well, I'm pretty sure the current wheels have a +24mm offset, but would need to verify. How concerned should I be about scrub radius? Anything else I should definitely look out for? Added a picture of the wheel, because why not.
Thanks in advance.

Yea, the 10" is definitely too wide in the front, I assume a previous owner wanted to be able to rotate the wheels or just wanted to offload these wheels as he was selling it.
I'm not sure exactly how much it was lowered, tomorrow I'll bust out a ruler and measure how far off the ground the front bumper is, and how much clearance I have above the tire. Maybe take some pictures of the suspension and try to figure out what it's actually sitting on.

If you could provide measurements on your set up, I'd really appreciate that.

I took some measurements today, I've got 1.25" clearance from tire to fender at the top, closer to 1.5" on the front/back. It only has 3" of sidewall due to the stretch, so if I move to a non-stretched 245/40 on a 17x8" rim, having the real side wall will probably add 3/4" to overall tire diameter. Cutting it close, but I'm thinking that's my best option...

Here's a picture I have on-hand, in a few hours I'll get one more direct on the side. The back definitely sits higher than the front

here's the side profile of the car...