Lachstock and Four Turbo Charged Cylinders ['04 NB SE]

[ManiacLachy]

Hopefully the dodgy day events have helped with your skills. I must admit that I have enjoyed learning things at these days, plus it has proven that it is possible to do a lot of the work yourself.

Definitely learned a lot at Dodgy Days, when people come together with different skills and experiences and share them it's very easy to pick up new things. But even more than that the dodgy day environment gives confidence to try to do it yourself. Knowing that you've got a lot of tools available, and extra hands to help out makes a job a lot less daunting. And the confidence gained from solving an issue or completing a job carries over to working at home on your own.

I'm very grateful for Dodgy Days at Casa de Magpie! If only you weren't so far away

[ManiacLachy]

Finally, FINALLY, after 4 years I've done something I've been long planning and thinking about since the very begining. I've finally bought new wheels to replace the OEM 17" wheels.

Lokiel can now sleep peacefully, knowing one more SE/MSM has ditched the "boat anchors".

One reason it's taken this long is because I've been indecisive and couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted. Originally I was thinking 8" 6ULs but I feel like their offset was a little low, great for NAs, but NBs need a little more poke. So, 9" 6ULs? But I felt 9s were a bit too wide, only one real tyre option in Australia (225/45/15 RS3/4s).

Also, I felt like silver was the wheel colour for me. Ever since I saw some photos from the Peterson museum in L.A. with a whole bunch of classic Silver cars all running silver wheels, I just felt it was a classic good look. Then 949 ditched their silver wheels. Tungsten is nice, but I wanted silver.


My car will look just like these, right?

I thought about some Work wheels, the Equip 40s and Meister S12Ps are beautiful (see Bear's Scooby for a stunning an example http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=73548), but at double the cost of 6ULs I couldn't do it. And any that came up used had horrible stance fitments and were often a staggered setup.

At last I settled on Enkei RPF1s. They're not the prettiest wheel, but they're not ugly, and they're light, strong, cheap, silver and offer great fitment 15x8" +28. They are the Goldilocks wheel.
http://www.autotechnik.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&path=71_87&product_id=326


Stack-em high


So offical. Very JDM. Wow


Juuuust right


(Some) Accessories included

Originally I wanted to shod them in 225/45/15 Hankook RS4s, but they're all sold out. So I began looking at 205/50/15s, there's a few options out there including the same Kumho Ecstas that I'm running on my OEM 17"s. But I wanted to see what full on 200TW grip was like and went for Yokohama AD08Rs. A lot of folks recommend them for fantastic warm weather grip, and better than can be expected wet grip too. I wonder how long they'll last in my DD duties though?


So sticky, just rolling them to the car for transport they picked up every loose rock!

Next up was to weigh the suckers and compare them to the "anchors".


My gym scales are perfect for this kind of thing!

So, we're looking at roughly 2kgs saved per corner, ~8kg total give or take a few grams. That should make a nice difference to the ride according to everything I read about unsprung weight.

As for fitment, the change should give a very slight negligible reduction in overall diameter, inner clearance against the shock should remain the same and it should poke out a touch more to nicely fill the guards. I've mounted 3 out of the 4 so far, and it definitely looks nice and wide, but not like it will rub.


Great tool for visualising wheel/tyre combos
https://www.willtheyfit.com/

I haven't ridden on them just yet, the act of weighing them has delayed that, currently the car is in the garage with 3 15" Enkeis and one 17" Racing Hart. But tonight I'll get everything bolted up, take it for a ride to work Friday to get some driving impressions as far as daily road handling goes. And if the weather holds I'll take the car for a mountain run on the weekend for some faster turns and to get some glamour shots.

[SKYHI]

Nice wheels mate, as you said, light, strong and reasonably priced. Not to everyone's taste but I had these on my Toyota 86 and really liked them.

Fair difference in the weight of your SE rims and tyres versus mine (17.1kgs). Different tyres of course and mine still have about 90% tread on them. Small difference in the weight of the Enkeis versus the Advanti Storm S1s (mine were 14.7kgs), which is strange as the Storms are listed as slightly lighter than the Enkeis. Probably more due to my bathroom scales than anything.

Be careful of the difference in overall diameter. It doesn't look much on paper, but I found out that it made just enough difference in the ride height to touch the top of the speed bump just around the corner from my place yesterday. Luckily I was going really slowly

Look forward to seeing them on the car.

[ManiacLachy]

I wouldn't focus too much on the difference between the scales, it matters more between objects on the same scale. My gym was are calibrated regularly (they're used for official competition weigh ins), so quite accurate. You saw a similar weight savings, right?

I plan on going easy over all bumps until I calibrate in my head what I can clear and what I can't. Might need a raise in ride height. Funnily enough before I put the wheels on I took a few photos so I could compare before & after, and the car is looking quite "slammed" to my eye at the moment. But in the garage with the wheels on in 3 out 4 spots (drivers front still to do), the car looks like it's a monster truck. I'll have to see how it looks after a drive and the shocks settle back down.

Also, plan on running the speedo app on my phone to check my speed at an indicated 100kph, might need to re-calibrate my cruising speeds as well.

[Lokiel]

Did they come with caps?

It REALLY annoys me when you buy expensive rims and they don't even throw in caps that they can probably source for ~A$3.

You'd think that they'd want their logo displayed clearly and there's no better place than in the centre of each wheel where it can be seen from any side angle.

[ManiacLachy]

No, they don't come with caps. Valves yes, but caps no. But I don't like the unfinished look, and I found this place that makes custom caps that look nice.


https://flatoutgfx.com/collections/center-caps/products/enkei-rpf1-center-caps-silver

He has chrome, black and silver caps, and all sorts of options for background and foreground colours for the decal. I went for silver cap, silver background, blue logo (very similar to the picture above - but the logo should match the valve).

If I get tired of the design Rev Limiter can create new decals to fit the caps and replace these ones, and Rev Limiter has lots of off the shelf designs ready and is open to all sorts of custom obs.

[SKYHI]

I wouldn't focus too much on the difference between the scales, it matters more between objects on the same scale. My gym was are calibrated regularly (they're used for official competition weigh ins), so quite accurate. You saw a similar weight savings, right?

Yeah similar weight savings overall (2.4kgs per corner including the 949 Racing wheels nuts). I was more surprised at the difference in the standard rims and tyres, but that will just come down to the tyres obviously

[Daffy]

The new enkei’s look great! And as for the daily drive wear on the AD08Rs, mine are still going great since purchase mate

[Gladiator]

I agree with the silver on silver mate. Looking forward to pics.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ManiacLachy]

I've dríven the new wheel and tyre combo on a couple of short daily drive runs to work and to coffee, and they're quite nice. A definite difference between the 17"s and 15"s, not immediately obvious but as you drive over various different surfaces the distinction becomes clear. I can still feel a lot of feedback through the road (a good thing IMO), but now everything is much less harsh. No noticeable tyre roar from the sticker rubber either, though it's not a quiet car at the best of times. The car feels more eager to accelerate as well, noticeable when moving off from a stop. And thanks to the new rubber, braking is excellent and I no longer need to slow down to take corners


Looks purposeful now - more go, less show

On Sunday morning I wanted to try the wheels out proper and I went for a drive out to Mt Glorious. Just as cleared Samford (a little village near the bottom), this bastard pulled out in front of me, and diligently drove at the speed limit the whole way


Cop blocked!

Still, better that he's in front of me than behind

Then 1km or so into the mountain road, we came across a whole line of stopped traffic. Someone had had an accident and we weren't going any where, so I just turned around and came home The tyres were great for what little I could use them, not really pushing them because the road was a little wet and I don't really know their limits yet. I'll get another run in them soon, it's been too long between mountain runs for me!

Visually the wheels took me a minute to get used to. All that extra rubber and less wheel was a little bit of a shock. However after a few glance backs in parking lots I'm really liking the look. I think I achieved the Silver on Silver aesthetic nicely.

On the 17"s the car looked quite low to me, not slammed/stanced, but low. Now on the 15"s it looks high! I think it's all the extra black around the wheel. Anyway, I think I'll lower the rear slightly but leave the front as is. I'm getting a little fender liner scraping on compression, an alignment will probably sort that out but I'll try to delay that until I put my new control arms w/ bushings and new springs in.


Old vs New

[SKYHI]

I felt the same difference in regards to the harshness of the ride. It was even so noticeable that Rachel mentioned the difference on our run out to Cars n Coffee on Saturday.

The silver was a good choice, they look great mate.

[Daffy]

The new combo looks great! It will be good to hear your feedback once you get a good test run in. Check in with Magpie prior to adjusting the ride height- you want to get the rake right. (The weather is cooling now, me thinks another Nasho run is on the horizon )

[ManiacLachy]

Thanks guys. Like you said Daffy, the weather is great right now for drives (as long as it stays dry!), so should be able to give them a good go soon. Then it's time to find my way to a race track.

I'm aware of the benefits of rake, I'll certainly be leaving some rake in there just a little less than current.

[Lokiel]

"Cop blocked!" - LOL

Silver rims suit the car well - I've seen black and bronze rims used on silver NBs and they didn't look right IMO (I REALLY hate black rims on any car other a black one).

It took me several months to get used to the look of 15" rims on my car but now when I see the 17" OEM Racing Harts I cringe, they look ridiculous to me now and I remember how harsh the ride was.

You'd obviously lowered you car from stock height since the car doesn't have "the 4WD look".
You're just not used to to the new look yet so give it a week or so before lowering the car, you may change your mind.
Most of us who've upgraded our rims from 17" to 15" have lowered our cars initially to what "looked right" but found it was too low and that we dragged our asses over every speed bump so incrementally increased the height until we were happy (I'm betting very close to about where your car sits right now).

Aside from the ride harshness, it was interesting that you noticed the improved acceleration from a standing start - I never did but physics says it will so maybe I was changing too many things at once to observe this.
You shouldn't need to brake as hard either since you've got MUCH less rotational mass to stop so you'll also be saving on pads and rotors too.

Now you can sell the OEM rims to 4 boat owners for use as anchors, you certainly wont want to put them back on the car!
OR, hang onto them and sell them for decent $$$ to someone who wants to sell their MSM and had gotten rid of their boat anchors years ago but needs a set because the buyer is an an idiot who wants the Racing Hart rims.

[ManiacLachy]

Now you can sell the OEM rims to 4 boat owners for use as anchors, you certainly wont want to put them back on the car!
OR, hang onto them and sell them for decent $$$ to someone who wants to sell their MSM and had gotten rid of their boat anchors years ago but needs a set because the buyer is an an idiot who wants the Racing Hart rims.

My OEM wheels are pretty rashed up from the previous owners (and I'm sure I added a nick or two, despite best efforts not to), I don't think they'd be worth anything to anyone. I'll hang on to them and use them as spares when needed (I'm never taking my car into a tyre place again, they'll get loose wheels only - so these can be temporary rollers then), or if I ever do another skid pan day they'd be good use there too.