usarmyethan
Member
- :
- 06 Dark Red Mazda3 S Sedan
Yes, I got STI wheels last week and yes I put them on my car today. Still needs work though.
It's been done and documented 3 times. Once by a girl in canada with no lowering springs who put spacers on so that the difference in hub sizes wasn't an effect. Another by a guy who had the hub on the wheels bored out and then put 5mm spacers on the rear just to push them out more and lowered his car 1 inch, then he sold the wheels. Lastly by a guy with a speed3. no lowering. Just had the hubs bored out to 67.1mm.
I'm going my own route and making another reference for anyone else interested in a setup similar to mine.
First off the wheels are Silver 17" with BBS center caps straight off an STI. My car is lowered 1.8" all the way around. This does create some small problems when going from a 6.5 inch wide tire to an 8 inch wide.
I couldn't get a machine shop in the Dallas area to bore out wheel hubs for me. Most assumed I was on drugs and promptly ended discussion. So spacers became my only option. They work as long as you have 5-7 threads visible that the nuts can screw onto. The front spacers work perfectly and the rear needs to run a wider spacer (wider than 5mm) in order to clear the hub because for some reason it's longer.
So once everything was bolted on and seated up I took it for a quick spin through the dealership parking lot and realized a couple of things I have to work on:
1. Rear spacers (since they don't touch the wheel) slide a little on the bolts because of the inertia
2. The wheels are terribly unbalanced in the front (wheel shaking started at 35 mph)
3. When I hit even small bumps the back wheels scrape on the metal part of the rear fender.
4. When the wheel is cut all the way left or right it rubs slightly on the inside fender well.
5. I want longer studs just to be safe.
All of these things I will get too in the next week or so and I will come back and update here piece by piece as I get through with it all.
It's been done and documented 3 times. Once by a girl in canada with no lowering springs who put spacers on so that the difference in hub sizes wasn't an effect. Another by a guy who had the hub on the wheels bored out and then put 5mm spacers on the rear just to push them out more and lowered his car 1 inch, then he sold the wheels. Lastly by a guy with a speed3. no lowering. Just had the hubs bored out to 67.1mm.
I'm going my own route and making another reference for anyone else interested in a setup similar to mine.
First off the wheels are Silver 17" with BBS center caps straight off an STI. My car is lowered 1.8" all the way around. This does create some small problems when going from a 6.5 inch wide tire to an 8 inch wide.
I couldn't get a machine shop in the Dallas area to bore out wheel hubs for me. Most assumed I was on drugs and promptly ended discussion. So spacers became my only option. They work as long as you have 5-7 threads visible that the nuts can screw onto. The front spacers work perfectly and the rear needs to run a wider spacer (wider than 5mm) in order to clear the hub because for some reason it's longer.
So once everything was bolted on and seated up I took it for a quick spin through the dealership parking lot and realized a couple of things I have to work on:
1. Rear spacers (since they don't touch the wheel) slide a little on the bolts because of the inertia
2. The wheels are terribly unbalanced in the front (wheel shaking started at 35 mph)
3. When I hit even small bumps the back wheels scrape on the metal part of the rear fender.
4. When the wheel is cut all the way left or right it rubs slightly on the inside fender well.
5. I want longer studs just to be safe.
All of these things I will get too in the next week or so and I will come back and update here piece by piece as I get through with it all.
