Around November of last year I decided I wanted to get some wheels I really wanted. I liked the OZ Allegheritas but I think the car just looks better on wheels with fewer spokes. I fell in love with the Advan GT Premium forged wheels and placed an order with them from
Vivid Racing during SEMA. They don't normally stock these wheels so they were effectively made to order and it took just a hair over 3 months to be made and get here from Japan.
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| New wheels and tires test fit - 2-23-2019 |
Since I bought the wheels before I decided to go to STU, they're actually B-Street spec at 18x8.5 +50 and 18x10 +40 5x130 bored for Porsche and specifically designed to run standard R14 conical bolts or wheel nuts. They weigh in at a very light 18.6 and 19.2 lbs respectively and are Racing Hyper Black in color.
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| Advan Racing GT Premium Wheel |
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| Advan Racing GT Premium Wheel |
Despite them being sized for B-Street, they're actually fine for STU since I decided to run 255/35/18 and 265/35/18 Bridgestone RE-71Rs. For sure, a 9" wide wheel up front would've been more ideal for a 255 tire but the tire is really barely pinched so it's fine. Heck, last year I ran 265s on the same width wheel!. I had the tires shipped to
SJF Performance and took the wheels there to him today to have it all mounted and balanced. I had originally planned on running TPMS sensors but it turns out the shape of the front wheels just won't let that happen as the sensor interferes with the tire beading. Not a big deal, I'll just go ahead and disable TPMS and do what I've been doing for years...regularly check my tire pressures using an accurate gauge. I've been meaning to do this for some time now so this is a good excuse to actually do that. TPMS is extra annoying during autocross events anyway as it's constantly complaining that my tires are not at the recommended 37psi (in the warmer months) which is silly since I know what pressures these tires are supposed to run on.
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| Getting ready for tire mounting - SJF Performance - 2-23-2019 |
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| All tires mounted up and Advan center caps installed - 2-23-2019 |
Although I knew the wheels would fit based on my experience with the OZs which are very similar in size and offset, I have much more camber now so the tops of the wheels are closer to the damper bodies. Anticipating I might need them, I picked up 5mm hub-centric spacers from Titan Wheel Accessories and I'm glad I did because these wheels with the 5mm spacers behind them is perfect fitment. NOTE: You need to run longer bolts to to use 5mm spacers but the Rennline wheel stud conversion we installed last year has enough thread to fit the 5mm spacers with no issues.
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| 5mm hub centric wheel spacers |
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| Wheel fitment of front wheel (top view) |
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| Wheel fitment of rear wheel (top view) |
The 255/265 tires are 0.5" and 1" shorter respectively than the stock 235/265 19" tires on the car so they don't fill the wheel well as much but they're certainly a lot better than the 285s I ran in the rear last year which were a whopping 1.5" shorter than stock. This will still give me good gearing while offering a tall enough 2nd gear for higher speed courses. The fronts are dropped about as low as I'd be ok with right now. The 19s just clear so these 18s have a more normal sized wheel gap. I had already planned on lower the rear another 10-15mm to get more rear rake and that rear wheel gap sure could use some work. It's not that bad though in real life though. The cell phone pic at closeup just makes the proportions look really out of whack.
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| Rear wheel gap on the 265/35/18 RE71R |
Unfortunately all I could do was test fit today. I had to take them off and put the stock wheels back on since the temperatures still look to be below 40F for highs for the next week or two and I may still need to be able to drive her to places to sort out some final things.
