Studs
An ongoing bit has been sorting the suspension of the 2002. The major part so far is the tire and wheels combo. The car as bought came with 13 inch BMW turbine wheels from an E30 with little tiny tires ('quality' US General tires). Try finding decent tires in 13 inches these days, it's slim pickings out there.
Anyway, I wanted something better looking and really liked the look of Minilites/Panasports. They had a nice vintage racy appeal. I ended up buying a set of Rota RB's in gunmetal in 15 inches. They're a popular wheel from Spain with the Minilite look. 15 inches will give me a much greater selection of modern tires.
Complicating matters is the car isn't what you would call stock. With the turbo flares mounted, I'm not restricted to the original mounting and offsets. In fact, if I mounted stock wheels on the car it would look pretty funny, like a clown car, as they wouldn't come close to filling out the flares. And there isn't any guide where I can just go lookup what size wheel I need. I need to measure, fiddle, fuss and guess, and repeat.
After thinking about it for several months, I pulled the trigger and bought the above wheels. They look great and fill out those wheel arches.
Problem is, they rub.
They rub in front, and they rub in back. Now reading the forums, this is liking saying 'hey, the sky is blue'. They all do that with 15 inch tires. The common consensus here is a BFH is your friend. Find out where it's rubbing - use some spray paint as a marker and go for a spirited ride - and then "adjust" the wheel well.
So I been doing a little of that, plus playing with spacers, plus playing with the size of the tires. My local tire guy loves me. At this point I'm getting a volume discount on tire changes. I'm closing in on my perfect tire/wheel/spacer combo but the snow and salted roads are upon us so the research program is on hold.
But while doing my 'research' aka hooning on the local roads, I started worrying about the engagement of my studs and wheel nuts.The wheels have deep socket wells and I'm using spacers so it's hard to gauge how much stud the lug nuts are clamping down on. I decided I would feel better with longer wheel studs. Off to the internet and Ireland Engineering's web page.
A week or two later and I have a set of new studs and lug nuts.
Since the new studs are a bit longer than the original, I couldn't finesse the installation and needed to pull the rear hub.
Using my vise I pounded out the originals with a hammer and with a socket wrench pulled the new ones in.
Of course, we all know the color red makes everything go faster, so I painted the rusty drums with Rustoleum red.
Back on the car ...
The end result.
Yup, safer, subtle and faster. Just the way I want it.
Anyway, I wanted something better looking and really liked the look of Minilites/Panasports. They had a nice vintage racy appeal. I ended up buying a set of Rota RB's in gunmetal in 15 inches. They're a popular wheel from Spain with the Minilite look. 15 inches will give me a much greater selection of modern tires.
 |
| Rota RB's with Kumho AST performance tires. |
After thinking about it for several months, I pulled the trigger and bought the above wheels. They look great and fill out those wheel arches.
 |
| Before the repaint |
Problem is, they rub.
They rub in front, and they rub in back. Now reading the forums, this is liking saying 'hey, the sky is blue'. They all do that with 15 inch tires. The common consensus here is a BFH is your friend. Find out where it's rubbing - use some spray paint as a marker and go for a spirited ride - and then "adjust" the wheel well.
So I been doing a little of that, plus playing with spacers, plus playing with the size of the tires. My local tire guy loves me. At this point I'm getting a volume discount on tire changes. I'm closing in on my perfect tire/wheel/spacer combo but the snow and salted roads are upon us so the research program is on hold.
But while doing my 'research' aka hooning on the local roads, I started worrying about the engagement of my studs and wheel nuts.The wheels have deep socket wells and I'm using spacers so it's hard to gauge how much stud the lug nuts are clamping down on. I decided I would feel better with longer wheel studs. Off to the internet and Ireland Engineering's web page.
A week or two later and I have a set of new studs and lug nuts.
 |
| original stud on left, new one on right |
Since the new studs are a bit longer than the original, I couldn't finesse the installation and needed to pull the rear hub.
 |
| Pulling the hub with my handy dandy Harbor Freight puller |
Using my vise I pounded out the originals with a hammer and with a socket wrench pulled the new ones in.
Of course, we all know the color red makes everything go faster, so I painted the rusty drums with Rustoleum red.
Back on the car ...
The end result.
Yup, safer, subtle and faster. Just the way I want it.
Comments
Post a Comment