the hunt for the perfect JDM wheel

[Fatty]

17's on an NA? kiss your handling goodbye. also the offset is all wrong, i think. happy to be told otherwise tho.

[Fatty]

i went from 16's to 15's and the handling is much better. i can only imagine how bad 17's must be. do you drive your car on the twisties or is it just city cruising?

[Boags]

The japs like tiny wheels. They got NAs from the factory with 14s and put 13s on them.

Get 13x8 Watanabes or similar, thats JDM yo! 17s is for Aussies trying to be JDM.

Boags

[RaYmO]

I just sold two sets of wheels today.

17\" protech with tyres and just the stock 14\" rim.

I didnt know that there was going to be such a significant difference in weight (bearing in mind the 14\" had no tyres but still!)

I can only imagine what the ride would be like if I went back to a smaller rim!

[Boags]

A larger rim will be heavier. It is this extra weight which dulls the steering and ruins the handling. The lighter the better.

Boags

[manga_blue]

A larger rim also puts more of the weight out towards the outside of the tyre/wheel combo, for the same overall diameter and even the same total weight. That means your wheels become more like 4 big flywheels on your car, taking the edge off acceleration and braking.

You'd actually get much better performance off 13s, if you coud find decent tyres for them.

[meanmx]

Alot of people on here are quite negative about 17's but in my experience they are an awesome mod. I had the stock 14's with good Bridgestone tyres before and they gave up the ghost pretty easily in corners. Most corners taken hardish had my arse end hanging out. Now with 205's on 17's I can push my car through a corner much harder. One thing though. The car does need to be lower otherwise the centre of gravity is too high but once I got new springs it was better than ever. As for being heavier, I don't think it will make a huge diiference in day to day driving. Maybe on a track where 1 or 2 seconds a lap counts. I feel I can make that up in cornering speeds though.

Ben

[RaYmO]

I think 17\" fill up the guards perfectly

[Boags]

Wider is different to bigger. I went from crappy heavy rims with 195/50/15 semislicks to super light rims with 195/50/15 chinese sports tyres. Grip is down (Obviously) but everything else is much nicer. In day to day driving is where I really notice it, because it is lighter to steer, doesn't track as much and is just generally more nimble.
Heavier rims will decrease your acceleration because the engine has to get more mass to spin. At the same time your brakes are going to heat up quicker trying to slow down all that extra inertia.

Lighter (not necessarily smaller) is better.

Boags

[Moggy]

totally... hence why i want to offload the heavy 17's currently that came with my car.. i think im just going to go for the lightest 17 i can afford .. and obviously the most jdm looking ;)

most likely work, enkie or something similar .. hunt continues. im really liking the enkie rpf1 at teh moment... in gold against the white duco ;)

veryyyyy niceeeeeee (borat voice)

I think you're on the right track qikshift. If you get a light set of 17's they'll only weigh a kilo or two more than a set of 14's and will look waaay better IMO.

A lot of people on this site are anti-17, and I agree if you get a set of heavy ones (your average cheap 17 would weigh about 10kgs), but a light weight set that weigh around 7-7.5kgs aren't going to disturb your handling much.

I have a set of 17" Rays G-Games (6.9kgs each - see sig below ) on my car, and compared to the 14" Watanabes I had on it, the ride is slightly harsher (it's barely noticeable), but the grip is much better (with similar quality tyres).

And finally - small wheels just don't look right!

[Moggy]

I paid $1300 second hand which I thought was reasonable.

If I was to fit a new set of wheels I would probably go with...

Rays 57S-Pro...




or Rays T57-RC

[Fatty]

wow. every time i see a hott fd rx7 i cum a little bit in my pants

[Adam_NAclubman]

JDM look ISN'T big rims. Its normalish diameter rims with a fat offset to give a wicked stance. ie Babalouie's car

Buy my Buddyclub's :p Full-on JDM spec Yo!

[rhysk]

I think you're on the right track qikshift. If you get a light set of 17's they'll only weigh a kilo or two more than a set of 14's and will look waaay better IMO.

A lot of people on this site are anti-17, and I agree if you get a set of heavy ones (your average cheap 17 would weigh about 10kgs), but a light weight set that weigh around 7-7.5kgs aren't going to disturb your handling much.

The original NA wheels are 4.8 kg. Going from 4 to 8 kg is a big difference, in ride and handling. My NA had 14" track wheels with R-spec tyres, vs my street rubber on 16's, and the handling difference over mid corner bumps was amazing. My current car has 17's, which weigh 7.2 kg, but I'd love to get a set of 15" track rims.