Great Wheel Deal

[cody]

17's>18's>19's in regards to acceleration and handeling. This is because the larger rims put more weight further out from the center of gravity...so I've been told.

[sperry]

Prodrive doesn't make wheels. Prodrive brands wheels that other manufacturers make, usually OZ or BBS.

17" wheels are ideal on a Subaru... large enough to clear big brakes, small enough to keep rotational enertia down (and therefore acceleration up). Unless you have the money to spend on 18" or 19" ultra-lightweight forged wheels, and the additional money to afford the tires for them, you always want to run the smallest diameter wheel that will clear your brakes.

17" wheels are affordable, strong, and have an ass load of tire choices available for them.

[A1337STI]

And i was thinking the 19>18>17 i was thinking lower profile wheels, = more road feel (which may or may not be true) but it definatly makes sense about rotational inertia. (maybe its just a marketing ploy, i know the prodrive performance kits Recomends 18" to take advantage of the extra torque ) ?? marketing jibberish ? your explanation makes perfect sense. thanks man.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by A1337STI

And i was thinking the 19>18>17 i was thinking lower profile wheels, = more road feel (which may or may not be true) but it definatly makes sense about rotational inertia. (maybe its just a marketing ploy, i know the prodrive performance kits Recomends 18" to take advantage of the extra torque ) ?? marketing jibberish ? your explanation makes perfect sense. thanks man.

Lower profile tires do theoretically help handling because they reduce the sidewall rollover. However, the tires we tend to race with have very stiff sidewalls, so the extra inch of sidewall doesn't actually make a difference... you're just paying an extra $30/tire to have less pot-hole protection for your more expensive wheels.

Trust me, 17" wheels are the way to go, unless you're just looking for something to bling. I used to have 18's... I got rid of them for 17's.

[M3n2c3]

Man, if I had an STi, I'd stick with the stock rims. Yeah, they're stock, but they're forged BBS wheels!

[cody]

Originally Posted by cody

I'm so close to picking these up...I just gotta get a 0% interest credit card and I'm buying.

So I ordered the wrong tires initially (ST 115's) thinking they were RT 215's. Luckily my buddy pointed out my mistake and Edgeracing had no problem changing my order when I called the next day. The coolest part is it seems I saved about $55 since their website says the change should have added $100, but according to this invoice and my credit card, the change only added $44.88.

[A1337STI]

well i do live up in tahoe, so that means i really need to keep my snow tires on past through april, maybe through may. I could blow though a LOT of money just getting tires changed out. so much so it would be best to have an extra set of rims (maybe light weight 18's? ) course i could just get an other set of 17's and just use them for autoX ... arg. i wouldn't want to actually race, on heavy rims. i also don't want to use my stocks Only for auto X , and then use cheap uglies year round , and or for winter... hmmf

if you Knew you had to keep snow tires on through april, but you were going to possibly enter a few autoX events in april, what would you do? its what like $50 to get tirse swaped out ? maybe its cheaper... but at $50 , if i did 4 auto X things in the tail end of the snow season. that's 8 changes back and force, $400 not to mention a final change at the end of the year, and i'll probably have to change my summer tires once or twice this summer. . also if i wanted to get an autoX tire only and a normal use summer tire... arg. :O

damn tha deal is gone. If i can find a rim for $100 that is light weight and the stock size, i'm thinking (ESP if i get way into autoX) it will save me a lot of money down the road. and if i end up hating autox i can sell the spare rims.. (hard to imagine i'll hate it )

[cody]

Most STI owners run their stockers in the summer and get some cheap rims like Rota's in 17" for the winter. Weight doesn't matter as much in the winter, not that Rota's are all that heavy.

In your situation, if you start autoxing, you can either use your summer setup, or get an autox specific setup which is what I just did...but then you have 3 sets of rims.

[A1337STI]

i have to use winter tires so much that i opted to just stay on my stock rims. (for safty i should be in winter tires at least 6 months of the year, and upwards to 8 so i was figuring I'm gonna use my stock rims in winter (that and i had to buy snow tires the same day i Bought my sti and was really cash strapped - got my sti in november , with snow already down ) now i have lots of gravel pock marks in my stock sti rims from winter use. *Sniffle* (hoping i can strip the paint off the stocks and get them powder coated ) only have the 1 set. sounds like i should get an autox setup though. ... light and cheap rims... hmmm... thanks

[cody]

No problem. Subydude.com sells Rota's and can mount tires, but it's really best to sign up for their newsletter and just wait till they have a package deal with free lugnuts and a shirt or somthint...or just call them up and see what they offer.

I got my stock WRX rims painted 20% gloss black here:

Advanced Powder Coating & Sandblasting LLC

1823 Deming Way
Sparks NV 89431-6506
775-358-4610
Fax: 358-4612

The owner, Guy, did an excellent job and only charged me $35/rim plus tax. Apparently you just have to say Pat sent you to get that price. There's a thread on it here .

BTW, the Enkei's I got from EdgeRacing came with some cheap looking lugs, a socket (for the lugs), center caps and extra metal valve stems. I was impressed.

[MPREZIV]

3 sets of wheels dude. It's the way to go! It's not cheap, but SO much easier to be able to just jack the ride up and swap out everything based on season/activity.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

No problem. Subydude.com sells Rota's and can mount tires, but it's really best to sign up for their newsletter and just wait till they have a package deal with free lugnuts and a shirt or somthint...or just call them up and see what they offer.

I got my stock WRX rims painted 20% gloss black here:

Advanced Powder Coating & Sandblasting LLC

1823 Deming Way
Sparks NV 89431-6506
775-358-4610
Fax: 358-4612

The owner, Guy, did an excellent job and only charged me $35/rim plus tax. Apparently you just have to say Pat sent you to get that price. There's a thread on it here .

BTW, the Enkei's I got from EdgeRacing came with some cheap looking lugs, a socket (for the lugs), center caps and extra metal valve stems. I was impressed.

That deal on the powedercoating isn't such a great deal anymore. They're charging a lot more now because it turns out that stripping the paint of a wheel is more labor intensive than they thought it'd be.

[cody]

Lame. I wondered how the hell a legit shop was charging half the normal price and doing an awesome job.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by cody

Lame. I wondered how the hell a legit shop was charging half the normal price and doing an awesome job.

I blame Cory... it took them like 5 times longer than expected to strip the existing power coating off his wheels.

[MPREZIV]

HEY! I can't help it if they use thicker powdercoat in Brittain! That shit was just as it came from Team Dynamics! Hell, with all the curb marks that I had to sand down smooth before I dropped them off, I figured it would be LESS work! Half the rim was bare metal on two of them!

[khail19]

Originally Posted by cody

BTW, the Enkei's I got from EdgeRacing came with some cheap looking lugs, a socket (for the lugs), center caps and extra metal valve stems. I was impressed.

Ha ha, my Enkeis came with valve stems, center caps, 12x1.5 lug nuts, 21mm lug socket (for 19mm lugs), and 1 rim showed up 2 days after the first 3, with the box in considerably worse shape. I wasn't so impressed. To Edge Racing's credit they overnighted a set of 12x1.25 lugs to me, which still are too small for the supplied lug socket. I'm not even going to use them anyway, so it doesn't matter.

[cody]

Originally Posted by khail19

Ha ha, my Enkeis came with valve stems, center caps, 12x1.5 lug nuts, 21mm lug socket (for 19mm lugs), and 1 rim showed up 2 days after the first 3, with the box in considerably worse shape. I wasn't so impressed. To Edge Racing's credit they overnighted a set of 12x1.25 lugs to me, which still are too small for the supplied lug socket. I'm not even going to use them anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Oh, did you get the plastic hubcentric ring thingy's too? Is plastic going to be okay or should I look into some aluminum ones?

[Dean]

Plastic is fine. They are primarily an aid for mounting the wheel, not actually supporting it. The lug nuts take most of the rotational load, and the mouning surface and lug nuts take the lateral load.

[cody]

Cool, thanks Dean!

[khail19]

Yep, plastic for me. Like Dean said, apparently it's OK to use them. The only thing I would worry about is if you were really getting your brakes hot at a track day and melting them. I haven't heard of it happening, just a thought.

[Kevin M]

Sport Compact Car fried the crap out of a set that they used on their Project SRT4 with Stoptechs. Granted, the ones they used were somewhat small and used the ST20 sliding caliper. I'd still use them if I received them with a set of wheels since I swap wheels all the damn time, but if they were distorted or anything I'd either abandon them totally or find some machined metal ones.

[cody]

Yah, but what do you expect from a Neon.

I have the same problem as Khail. The socket they sent doesn't match the lugs. I'll have to check to see if the lugs fit the car, I guess, but I really doubt I'll ever use them anyway.

[khail19]

Edge Racing told me that Enkei provides those sockets with the wheels, but the lugs from ER aren't supposed to match up. Kind of dumb, but for the price of these wheels I guess we can live.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by cody

Yah, but what do you expect from a Neon.

Poor resale value.

[A1337STI]

I expect a neon to say "hi" to me