I've been getting a lot of messages as to what wheels will fit our cars, which coilover brand goes the lowest, how much negative camber will I need to make this fit, etc. So I thought it'd be a good idea to create a fitment thread.
The purpose of this thread is not to be a database for wheel dimensions that fit our cars. That thread can be found here: what-wheels-will-fit-my-altima-will-it- ... 46628.html . This is meant to be more of a conceptual guide to understanding why and how you can go about determining what will fit. Because what fits for one person will not necessarily fit for another.
*Wheel fitment isn't as complicated as I used to make it seem and it probably isn't as complex as some of you think it is. Going forward, the best way to think about whether things will fit or not is literally,"based on how I know things act in nature, will this part of the car touch another part of the car?" Keep it simple.
Ride Height
I think the most important thing to keep in mind as to whether or not a setup will rub is your ride height. This factor dictates almost everything surrounding your stance and is what I personally would consider to be the starting point.
20's vs 19's vs 18's
Knowing how high or low you want your car to sit, in addition to how much you want to close up your wheel gap, makes the decision of what wheel diameter to go with a lot easier.
There's a trade off between riding as low to the ground as possible and closing up your wheel gap. 18's will put you on the floor but unless you're running a tire with a side wall of 45+, there's no way you're killing your wheel gap. Going with 20's is the easiest way to eliminate your wheel gap but it puts you higher off the ground compared to 18's and 19's. Taking the wheel gap explanation a step further, it should be fairly easy to see that you're more likely to rub the top of your wheel well with 20's, than with 19's and 18's.
Coilover brands - Which sit the lowest?
From what I've gathered, the brands of coils for our cars in order of how low they can go are:
1) Megan
2) BC & D2 (confirmed by calling D2)
3) Ksport??
4) Tein
Wheel Width and Offset
This is probably what everyone's most familiar with yet what everyone knows the least about.
** To keep things simple, I won't be accounting for the width of the faces (or center piece of the wheel) when explaining offset.
Here is a picture of a 3 piece wheel. I'll be referring to the parts of the wheel going forward.
Offset is how far your hub is from the center of the wheel.
A lot of people use this diagram to help other people understand offset but I always found it confusing when initially learning. The image looks busy, my eyes never settle and things look backwards sorta lol
I'm going to use three offsets on a 9 inch wide wheel as an example.
-a 9" wide wheel with an offset of +25mm means that the hub of the wheel is 25mm OUT from the center of the wheel.
-a 9" wide wheel with an offset of 0mm means that the hub is at the dead CENTER point of the wheel. Excluding the face/center of the wheel (the part that you put your lugs on), there is 4.5" of material on one side (outer barrel aka lip) and 4.5" of material on the other side (inner barrel)
-a 9" wide wheel with an offset of -25mm means that the hub of the wheel is 25mm INWARDS (towards the barrel) from the center of the
wheel (Very Aggressive).
The offset of +#mm on a 9" wheel does not produce the same amount of poke/sunk-ness of +#mm on 10" wheel. The best way of looking at this is with an offset of +/- 0mm. Ask yourself where the hub would sit on a 19x9 +/- 0mm. Remember that the offset is how far away the hub is from the center of the wheel. So on a 9" wide wheel, the hub is 0mm away from the center (so it's right in the middle)! What about on a 10" wide wheel? The hub is dead center as well. On a 10", the outer portion of the wheel will have 5 whole inches of material (lip). I simply divided 10 by 2. On a 9", the lip will be 4.5". If you were to put the wheels on a car, the 10" wide wheel with a +/- 0 offset will stick out exactly half of an inch more than a 9" wide wheel. This is because the distance from the edge of the lip to the hub, there is a whole 5" worth of lip on the 10" wide wheel, while on the 9" wheel there is only 4.5" of lip.
Also, lets say you have a 3 piece 19x9 +25mm wheel that you would like to turn into a 10" wide wheel. Going an inch wider from 9", the wheel becomes half an inch wider on the inside (inner barrel) and half an inch wider on the outside (lip). Since the width of the wheel obviously affects how much it pokes out, you need to take that into consideration as to how it affects the offset. Half an inch more material on the lip, means that the wheel will stick out half an inch more. To see how that affects the offset, you need to subtract this amount from the current offset. Half an inch is about 13mm so the new offset is +12 (25mm-12.7mm).
Tire Size
I like looking at the tire as an extension of the wheel:
1) The wider the tire, the more likely you are to rub on the outside fender
2) The taller your tire, the more likely you are to rub on the top of the wheel well AND the higher you sit from the ground.
These are the most important factors to keep in mind when selecting tires. Because of these factors, people usually look into getting a tire size that is smaller than the recommended width and height for a specific width (tire stretching). Stretching your tire actually effects two dimensions:1) the tire width AND 2) the side wall
1) People go with a smaller tire width to avoid rubbing on the outer portion of the fender as stated above.
2) Going with a smaller width also stretches your sidewall. So not only is your sidewall not as high from going with a smaller tire width (a 235/35/19 side wall is naturally shorter than a 245/35/19), the sidewall is also shortened because it is being pulled on horizontally from the width being too small. Everything is stretched, both the width and the side wall.
A 235/35/19 sized tire on a 11.5' wide wheel is not as wide nor as tall as a 235/35/19 on a 8.5" wide wheel
235/35/19 on an 8.5" wide wheel. Notice the sidewall looks straight and normal, without any curves like it would have if it was stretched.
235/35/19 on an 11.5" wide wheel. You should be able to clearly tell that the sidewall and the tread sort of "blend together" from being stretched.
If you don't need the clearance or aren't running an aggressive setup, there's no point in stretching your tires. I personally think anything more than a medium stretch looks tacky. Also, it just increases your wheel gap (side wall isnt as high from being stretched). And in the winter, extreme stretches are more likely to leak air than a medium stretched/non stretched tire.
Check out http://www.tyrestretch.com for a whole database of various tire stretches.
Suspension Travel
I don't know how to properly define suspension travel but I like to look at it as how much your wheels "bounce" up and down while driving. You can reduce your suspension travel by adjusting your coil over damping or getting springs with higher spring rates. With either of those options, your frame will move a lot less when you hit bumps or drive along dips in the road. The setups that you see with wheels/tires that are almost right on the fender and you wonder how the hell they don't rub usually have springs with a very high spring rate.
Check out this amazing demonstration. It's a great example of minimized suspension travel and the perfect amount of negative camber.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5l_F4o8 ... r_embedded[/youtube]
Less suspension travel means less wheel movement, which means less chances of your wheel hitting your fenders after hitting a dip or even rubbing at all (with a very high rate). Keep in mind that less suspension travel typically comes with a more uncomfortable ride, especially for our cars.
Camber
If you throw on your wheels and they're rubbing on the outer fenders, you can adjust your camber more negatively so that your wheels tilt inwards at the top, giving you just enough clearance. There is a common misconception that having negative camber will make you go through tires like nothing. This is not necessarily true for moderate amounts of negative camber. That may be the case in extreme situations. But for the most part, as long as your toe is in spec, you won't eat through tires and they will last you a long time (not as long as they would if you have 0 camber, but still a good while).
There are two reasons as to why I personally do not like using camber to make your wheels fit:
1) If you adjust your camber for clearance and take your car in for an alignment afterwards (which you will need to), chances are the alignment tech is not going to be able to get your toe in spec. Camber and toe sort of have an inverse relationship. Lets say you find your perfect ride height to be a 3" drop and lets say that at a 3" drop, its been scientifically proven that for your toe to be in spec your camber has to be at -2 degrees. Then you put on your wheels and -2 camber isn't enough for clearance and you want to add more negative camber. You CAN add more negative camber but for your toe to be in spec at a 3" drop, your camber has to be at -2. The result will be an out of spec toe and you'll eat through your tires. Your only option to get more negative camber while having your toe in spec in a situation like this is to lower your car further, but then you increase your chances of rubbing
2) If you set too much negative camber and your wheels are either really wide or have a very high offset for a particular width (like +55 on a 12.5 wide wheel), the top of your wheels/tires might hit your strut, like so:
That's a pretty rare scenario but it happens. I've heard stories from friends who drive IS300's that know people that it happens to. It's usually when people are very low, with lots of negative camber and on stock wheels. A solution to this would be adding spacers that are equal to or greater to the amount of clearance you need between your tire and your strut.
Fender work
Stepping into this kind of modding is almost definitely going to require fender work. Typically you will need to at least roll your fenders if you have a lot of suspension travel and your car is pretty low (to the point to where your coil overs are almost on the lowest setting). Rolling your fenders is a great investment in my eyes. It's relatively cheap and will save you a lot of potential problems. If you have to question whether or not you need to roll them, you most likely should. Just cough up the $80 or so and ask a shop to do it for you. I've read that people have rolled their fronts on our cars but I didn't on mine. I don't think they can be rolled much more than they already come from factory so I kept my money. Rolling your rears is a must.
Pulling your fenders gives you a lot more room for wheel clearance (depending on how much you pull of course). I would recommend letting a reputable shop do this. I'd even pay top dollar simply because I can only think of 3 or so cars that have their fenders seamlessly pulled. I usually see mangled / cracked work covered with stickers or something like that. I would rather adjust my camber to give me wheel clearance than pull my fenders. If I had to go past -4 though, I would rather pull. Our cars don't hide negative camber well and anything more than that looks tacky from the rear imo.
So thats about it, keep it simple!
"I'm maxed out on my coils, my stance is perfect but I rub what should I do?"
Slightly raise your car and add more negative camber
"I have the exact same wheel specs as this other guy but my stance doesn't look as nice. What's up?"
You should try to be original! But it comes down to a lot of things such as: camber, ride height and fenders.
"I don't wanna blow money on a setup that might not fit. What should I do?"
Find a friend that has wheel specs close to what you're aiming for and test fit them.
Wheel fitment isn't an exact science. People learn by testing the waters, messing up and succeeding. No one has all the answers, and no one can explain every single variable. People just have a relatively good idea on how things work.
Feel free to ask questions in this thread related to concepts about wheel fitment and stance. Please do not ask, "will this fit?" Almost all of the wheel setups that people have done on our cars are out there, just use the search tool. Feel free to add something if you have some knowledge to contribute!
Haha thanks homie
awesome. For my next setup I'd like to go 10 fronts and 11 rears. What kind of diameter are we looking at? I bet you're gonna stick with 19's :yes nod When are you planning on getting these?