I finally got around to doing a few modifications to the car. I drive 45k miles or more each year for work, so I won't do anything major.

A couple weeks ago I put on a home brew exhaust. Magnaflow mufflers and a 2.5" high flow resonator.

This week I put the new wheels on. They are BBS LM replicas w/ hyper silver faces, and DWS tires. The rears are a stepped lip.
18x8 et35 front w/ 245/45/18 tire (factory size)
18x9 et35 rear w/ 275/40/18 tire (same diameter)

The fronts are 21lbs per wheel, and the rears are 24lbs each. The factory wheel is ~21lbs.

They sit absolutely flush in the rear. The sidewall of the tire might stick out about 2mm from the fender when looking for plumb.





I had to lean out a little for the sidewall to actually show up.



Window tint goes on Thursday. Then all that is left is Eibachs, and possibly a rear sway bar upgrade and y-pipe. I already have 2-10's in the trunk.

 

where did u get the wheels

 

For 18's they look good, color matches the car great and you have the flush fit.
You also got a low weight wheels which is a plus. I see a lot of people that will go with 20's (which do look great on this car) but they are often adding another 10+ pounds of unsprung weight to each wheel.
Once you drop it you'll like the look....they will also look better in person than when posting pic's. The main reason I kept my 18's was because they do look pretty good on the Eibach drop plus I'm still wearing out the stock RSA's. I'm planning to go to 19's sometime in the near future.

 

I got the wheels on eBay, from aspecwheels.
I've liked these wheels for a long time. The real wheels are $3k a set.
I'm not new to wheels and the auto world. Had a twin turbo 91 Maxima, and one of the most modified VW GTIs in the country.

 

I raced a modded GTI just a day or two ago. He had me on the jump but I was ahead of him immediately after. He must have been a touch slow shifting to second. I held him off by 1-2 car lengths all the way up to 90 mph, then he slowly crept up till about 105 where we were even, then we both let off.

Pretty sure he wasn't expecting that as his car was (at least on the exterior) heavily modded. I had a little bit of a proud smirk on my face as we gave each other a thumbs up afterwards.

Can those GTI's be pretty quick when done right? I wasn't sure who was gonna come out ahead when we raced.

 

Haha, mine was a built motor, built trans w/ limited slip, big turbo, and bagged.
0-60 in 5 seconds, 1/4 in 12.x, and would spin tires through 3rd gear.
I would break traction at 90mph. The top speed was 175. (On street tires)
I would take corvettes on occasion, drag strip of course.


This is a commuter car. I can't, and don't want to modify it that much.
Y-pipe and Eibachs and I will be done.

 

That looks really good! Shoot a couple more close ups of the wheels and especially the back lips.

 

Those tires look extra thick.. is the ride softer?

 

The tires are factory sizes in the front, and plus sized in width, but keep the factory sidewall height.
245 x .45 = 110.25mm
275 x .40 = 110 mm
The ride is the exact same as before.

The wheels look smaller because the face is only 15", and the lip makes up the other 3". This also makes the tires look bigger.

Rear


Other side rear


front

 

Well, I just bough some Eibachs. Going on next weekend if I'm get the time.

 

You'll love the look after the drop. I'm a big fan of the BBS LM line as well and always wondered how they'd look on the max. They look quite sexy. Quite sexy indeed.

How flush are the front wheels with that offset? Do you have spacers on these?

 

No spacers on the car. The fronts are 10-15mm inset from flush.

 

They look out of place but if you like them that is all that matters.

 

These wheels are definitely more popular with the euro cars than the jdm cars.

Put the window tint on today. Max legal in NC. 35% on sides and rear, nothing on the windshield.

 

Really need to install the Eibachs. Cant wait to see it after you do.
Good luck!

 

Lowered it today. Took about 3.5 hours with basic hand tools. The crappy rented spring compressors is what took all the time. Went from a 3.5 finger gap to a 1.5 finger gap.

I had called a couple shops around me for price quotes, and they were all around $300.
For that money, time to do it myself. I have an alignment in the morning, though based on my test drive, I don't need it. The ride is stiffer, but more toward the sports car side, not race car.

I'll get another picture tomorrow, on level ground.

 

Looking good! Lowering makes it look so much better.

 

How can you feel if you need an alignment exactly?

 

Steering wheel on center, car traveling straight when wheel is straight, car doesn't pull either direction

 

ah...

 

Got the alignment done.
Everything was out of spec, but balanced, so the car drove well.
Now everything but the rear camber is in spec. I'm at -2 and spec is -1. That shouldn't be enough to cause much tire wear.

 

Looks soooo much better! Now you know we need like 4+ more pictures. haha

 

Looks fantastic man!!!

 

I'm getting a clunk now. Checked all the top bolts, will check the lower later. I'm thinking that it is the away bar bolts.

 

When do you get the clunk noise? Looks great!

 

Bumps, turning between 5 and 20mph.
I know the lower strut tower bolts are tight, as well as the top bolts. The only other bolts are the sway bar end links. These are non-captured, and difficult to tighten up.

 

Did you make sure that the springs were seated correctly?

 

yep. both fronts are properly indexed so the end of the coil is in the notch.

 

Last post of pictures. I'll post in this thread again when I figure out the clunk.

 

-2 degrees in the back will rub the insides out in due time. I recommend installing the camber arms with toe bolts to get everything back in perfect spec

 

put the stocks back on

 

You may need to roll your rear fenders a bit to get rid of that bump.

 

The noise has nothing to do with the fenders.

 

Lowering made a big difference. looks good! How does the magna flows sound? thinking about upgrading my mufflers.....

 

Changing the mufflers made no difference. I had to replace the factory mid-pipe resonator to get more sound. Now they are very deep at idle, but not obnoxiously loud.

 

Roger. Thanks for the info.

 

Unfortunately I agree with BBMax. These 18's look smaller than the stock 18's and if ur having any rubbing issues requiring fender rolling u ha e either bought the wrong offset and/or tire size. I'm lowered on 22's with eibach springs, camber and toe bolts and I have no rub at all! To each their own but u posted so u can expect opinions from both sides of the fence.

 

How many times do I have to say that I AM NOT RUBBING. FENDER ROLLING is NOT needed.

They look smaller than stock 18s because of the way proportion of the face to the lip of the wheel.

 

you don't say!

 

I ordered the 350Z SPC Rear Camber Arms as well as the T-Rex grill from Stillen today.
The rear diffuser arrives thursday.

If you can't tell, I'm just going to post everything about my car in this thread.