Post by gearheadeh on Sept 20, 2015 8:12:36 GMT -5
In honor of my reaching 500 posts I thought I would let the cat out of the bag on a combination of rims and tires that not only fit on our car despite appearance's but actually perform very well!
I Feel that the car handled better in all conditions, especially hard cornering on dry pavement than the stock 13 inch size. When you go up 2 inch's in rim size it means that the tire is allot stiffer in the side wall. This means you can have your cake and eat it too. You get a really good high quality Continental tire that lasts long, rides great, corners awesome despite being 20 points narrower! which means that you will get better fuel consumption rates AND-- -- it is easier to turn without power steering at low speeds!
It is a 145/65/15 off of the front of the 450 series Smart car.
Here is a comparison picture of a brand new unused spare 12 inch tire I had for my 88 1ST gen and unfortunately a worn out 13 inch tire that is standard on later Justies. the now obsolete and difficult to find 165 / 65 / 13/
As you can see the Justy was originally made for a relatively narrow tire.
Below you will see pictures of my 2 -- 88 Justies, one with a stock size 12 inch rim and tire, the rims are from the early Nissan Sentra incase you were wondering. The Red car also is so Rusty that the stock plastic wheel well moldings are missing making it look like there is more clearance than actual. Below that will be the the replacement 88 Iam still converting to EFI at the moment. The 15 inch tires are a bit taller but still fit nicely, it is hard to see but there is almost an inch of clearance! --First the rear wheel--
Now the comparison pictures of the same 2 cars in the front:
Now some pics of my old Rallycross grey Second gen which shows that I have run them in the winter.
A close up of the tight spot on the rear, the plastic is bent towards the tire because of interference from another tire I ran before that actually did rub!
The nut which came from a 1989 Nissan Pulsar (the one with the removable rear section to convert it from a sedan to a hatchback!) are much bigger in the shoulder and provide more contact with the taper portion of the rim. The stock Justy Acorn style closed log nuts are too small and will not pass tech when rally cross racing as shown below.
I put that up to prove that this combination has been acid tested in the worst possible condition for side loading and survived. The rims are:-- --- --- Wait for it --- --- Rims from the trunk of a Volkswagon Gulf. They are the 15 inch spacesaver rims with the ugly yellow stickers and flimsey space saver 1 ply tires removed.
Volkswagons do have the same 4 X 100 bolt pattern -BUT- they use a round shaped taper under the lugnut called a ball/socket. The hole size is smaller (Thankfully!) leaving room to get in there with a small dremel grinder and open the ball shaped taper up into a 45 degree taper like the rest of the Automotive world uses.
So there you have it, Parts from 3 different cars to make a combination that really works well and well worth the effort.
I Feel that the car handled better in all conditions, especially hard cornering on dry pavement than the stock 13 inch size. When you go up 2 inch's in rim size it means that the tire is allot stiffer in the side wall. This means you can have your cake and eat it too. You get a really good high quality Continental tire that lasts long, rides great, corners awesome despite being 20 points narrower! which means that you will get better fuel consumption rates AND-- -- it is easier to turn without power steering at low speeds!
It is a 145/65/15 off of the front of the 450 series Smart car.
Here is a comparison picture of a brand new unused spare 12 inch tire I had for my 88 1ST gen and unfortunately a worn out 13 inch tire that is standard on later Justies. the now obsolete and difficult to find 165 / 65 / 13/
As you can see the Justy was originally made for a relatively narrow tire.
Below you will see pictures of my 2 -- 88 Justies, one with a stock size 12 inch rim and tire, the rims are from the early Nissan Sentra incase you were wondering. The Red car also is so Rusty that the stock plastic wheel well moldings are missing making it look like there is more clearance than actual. Below that will be the the replacement 88 Iam still converting to EFI at the moment. The 15 inch tires are a bit taller but still fit nicely, it is hard to see but there is almost an inch of clearance! --First the rear wheel--
Now the comparison pictures of the same 2 cars in the front:
Now some pics of my old Rallycross grey Second gen which shows that I have run them in the winter.
A close up of the tight spot on the rear, the plastic is bent towards the tire because of interference from another tire I ran before that actually did rub!
The nut which came from a 1989 Nissan Pulsar (the one with the removable rear section to convert it from a sedan to a hatchback!) are much bigger in the shoulder and provide more contact with the taper portion of the rim. The stock Justy Acorn style closed log nuts are too small and will not pass tech when rally cross racing as shown below.
I put that up to prove that this combination has been acid tested in the worst possible condition for side loading and survived. The rims are:-- --- --- Wait for it --- --- Rims from the trunk of a Volkswagon Gulf. They are the 15 inch spacesaver rims with the ugly yellow stickers and flimsey space saver 1 ply tires removed.
Volkswagons do have the same 4 X 100 bolt pattern -BUT- they use a round shaped taper under the lugnut called a ball/socket. The hole size is smaller (Thankfully!) leaving room to get in there with a small dremel grinder and open the ball shaped taper up into a 45 degree taper like the rest of the Automotive world uses.
So there you have it, Parts from 3 different cars to make a combination that really works well and well worth the effort.