Got my dream Wheels, now I'm stuck?

[Daver]

First I apologize for the amount of info in this thread, I'm being thorough

Hello guys, Awhile back I placed and order for and have now received my dream wheel package for my car, sadly I did not do my due diligence in researching and figured these wheels were basically bolt on. Not the case.

I have been all through the wheel forums and threads, and now going through this forum I have concerns and questions, so Here goes:

Right now I have some staggered wheels 18x8.5+45 Fronts and 18x9.5+40 Rears
I wanted to wrap them in 235/40/18 (F) and 265/35/18 (R)

My original plan was to put the wheels and rubber on stock suspension, I have had lots of differing opinions on the forums and facebook groups if that is possible or not. I really don't still have a clear answer.

I think I do know that I can fit them just fine if I add coil-overs and RCAs , but that is a bigger pill to swallow as the cost is high. If I do the suspension parts everyone in posts I have followed had different values they added or took away from camber - How is that determined on my particular build? Find a guy who just knows his stuff when it comes to camber? use a computer program, or values dependent on manufact. specs?

My ultimate goal is to fit the wheels, and not have a big 4x4 gap, whilst still not trashing the cars fun to drive action. This is a daily driver, I will never track, but do like to drive hard sometimes. I was thinking 1" should fit the bill. I will never slam the car. I also think these particular wheels are too big to just use springs for the drop. - As if all these questions were not enough I have other concerns from reading through some threads here:

At that ride height, (2”) it's going to handle like crap without lots of geometry correction. You'll need about $2.5k in parts other than the coilovers for it to handle like it should at that low of a ride height.

Is a 1" going to kill the handling to such an extreme as well or is it fairly acceptable?

Our cars have very little travel in the rear to begin with and lowering the car 2" burns up most of what you had to begin with. You have a few options: You can pony up for a premium coilover that can better deal with the short travel, you can run insanely high spring rates which will destroy your car's handling and ride, or you can rethink your desire to run your car that slammed

Again 1" drop, will this still leave enough play on that rear travel, or am I pushing it?

1 inch lower than stock is safe and it sounds like 1.2 inches lower seems to be the limit of what you can get away with before you need to seriously think about bump steer and roll centre correction.
I will also note that it's well known that lowering our cars contributes to premature wear in the CV joints in our axles. Lowering much more than 1 inch and you should look at subframe and diff risers or DSS axles so you aren't killing them constantly.

I will google bump steer and roll centere, but my big concern here is wear on the CV joints, is this a legitimate concern at this 1"-1.2" drop?

Suspension is designed to lower max. 20mm without changing geometry (dynamic alignment). A lowering of 30-35mm is not optimal but OK. Personally, I wouldn't lower more than 15mm.

is the dynamic alignment referring our Base setup "feel"?

A 1" drop puts you at roughly -2.5*, a 2" drop will definitely be over 3*, probably more like -4*.

Easily correctable with camber adjusts to maintain the great handles? (only concerned with the 1" drop here)

All my reading has me slightly worried that I will be trashing this cars other internal components by making these modifications, I want to keep the car
quite a few years, so based on the answers here I might need to just sell my dream wheels and pick something else

THANK you and again apologize for size of thread

[gramicci101]

Those will fit just fine on OEM suspension or lowering springs. Here's a thread with 18x8.5+45 on OEM, and later in the thread it shows on lowering springs and coilovers.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10091

If you're only dropping an inch, you may not need RLCAs. You'll gain negative camber just by dropping, and it may end up where you want it. I'm lowered 0.7" and my rear camber is -2, which I'm happy with. You may want RLCAs anyways in case there are fender clearance issues that require a specific camber setting for clearance.

For the front, you might be able to get away with camber bolts or you may need camber plates. It depends on how much clearance you have between the wheel/tire and the spring/perch. If you need a little more clearance to run camber bolts, you can run a 2 or 3mm spacer on the OEM lugs with no issues. I wouldn't go thicker than that without getting longer lugs.

Trashing the cv joints and whatnot is a possibility when you're lowering by a lot, such as 2" or more. The angle they're forced to operate at does not make them happy. Wait until you have a problem before throwing money at a solution. Plenty of people are lowered on springs between 0.7" (RCE) to 1.4" (Enkei Sportline) with no issues at all.

[churchx]

Daver: if you ask that much to not make mistake with ruining handling .. one mistake is already done. You should have bought square wheel setup (around which suspension/brakes/electronic nannies of our cars were designed), not staggered. With yours you'll get more understeer with front plowing out. I'd also wouldn't go for that wide wheels at least if you plan to keep NA power, as even stock sized non-premacy tires will have more grip. As result with planned 235-265 tires at least ease of power oversteer will certainly be gone. Yes, one can still intentionally loose grip on much grippier tires, but most probably at higher speeds and with much more aggressive maneuvering (further accented by extra understeer of staggered setup). BTW, side gain for square setup is ability to save on tires (handy in long run during your planned use for few years and especially if you plan quickly burn rubber on some track days ) by rotating them according to wear front-rear, and easier to get just one size/type of replacement wheel if you damage it.
+what you yourself have quoted about overlowering. To not overspend on correcting what can be botched with too much drop it's wiser to be choose more reasonable drop below 1", which should be somewhat safe. My own choice is to not lower at all due practicality reasons, but as you mentioned "4x4 gap" it probably bothers you enough to have some drop anyway. Better do that within 1".
Worth reading first post of this thread.

[Captain Snooze]

To me those tyre sizes look like a recipe for messed up handling. The rear wheel weights alone would be too much for the stock stock springs and damping. Also, as @churchx said, the balance in front:rear grip is totally shot.
Read that link that churchx posted. It is gospel.

[Songha]

I'm lowered over 2" with nothing other than adjustable endlinks and it handles just fine. I haven't gotten to install my other suspension components yet either. I wouldn't worry too much if you're just gonna be daily driving the car as handling goes. I'm sure you'll have fun, I love on and off highway ramp curves find the sweet spot and the car hold its own really well. I still have fun everyday driving my twin.

[bfrank1972]

You're just fine, and BTW a mild 1" drop should NOT give you -2.5 degrees of camber in the rear (unless your alignment is off from the factory), that's more like a 1.4" drop. If you're doing a 1" drop, just get some camber bolts for the front, get it aligned, stop worrying, and start driving

[wparsons]

Originally Posted by bfrank1972

You're just fine, and BTW a mild 1" drop should NOT give you -2.5 degrees of camber in the rear (unless your alignment is off from the factory), that's more like a 1.4" drop. If you're doing a 1" drop, just get some camber bolts for the front, get it aligned, stop worrying, and start driving

Swift sport springs, true 1" drop (measured hub to fender after settling) and my rear camber is -2.5* with me sitting in the car (~170lbs) with no rear adjustment.

[PandaBRZ]

I agree with @wparsons. I'm 20mm lowered with - 2.2° in the rear.

[MeisterR]

With the 86, the biggest problem as most say is the rear damper travel, there aren't alot of it.
Also, it seems that alot of coilovers use some pretty high springs rate, so that does reduce ride quality a bit.

Lowering doesn't mean it will destroy the performance.
But the suspension have to be designed correctly to begin with, or else you are just going to fight an uphill battle making compromise after compromise.

This is one of our customer with the MeisterR ZetaCRD Coilovers:



From what I as told, you can still go a little lower.
Even that that ride height, the rear damper have just over 4" of damper stroke travel.

Also, being a dual perch design, you can dial in springs pre-load independently from ride height setting.
So that mean you can make more fine adjustments depending on what you need.

There are other parts of suspension geometry that you have to worry about such as roll centre, etc.
But generally, lowering a car does not mean the car will ride horribly or reduce performance.

Jerrick

[Leonardo]

What happened? Do they rub? Pics?

[Daver]

welp, I pulled the trigger on some good SPLs and Im just going with the Tien flex Z. (not the greatest but i just want that short drop) as I was sick of worrying about it. Thoughts on using those components to get where I need to be?

[cjd]

Originally Posted by Daver

welp, I pulled the trigger on some good SPLs and Im just going with the Tien flex Z. (not the greatest but i just want that short drop) as I was sick of worrying about it. Thoughts on using those components to get where I need to be?

Which bits? Follow their setup for ride height. Get an alignment by a professional. And, you won't fix the gobs of understeer with the rear wheels and tires being as much wider as noted.

You will probably benefit from going at least -2.5 camber up front if you can (I'd hope for ~-2 in the back) - otherwise your alignment will further reduce the willingness of the car to turn when you want it to. I think the common recommendation is a touch of toe-in in the rear for stability, and zero toe up front.

[Daver]

Yup Got a guy a couple hours away that is highly recommended in my area (on BRZs) to do a pro alignment and dial it in, pretty happy about that. won't do the install for a couple weeks as I wait for parts. Recommend some reading on understanding camber values on this particular chassis? or just scour the forums? I will basically be leaving it in his hands, but I can offer my input.

I Know about the steamroller wheels, and all the understeer, ahve spoken with some folks who live with it, and I love the look so much... If I cannot stand it I will swap the backs out when comes time to change tires. I am considering the Conti DWs for rubber, unless I should be looking at something better (store the car winters)

[strat61caster]

^Walk to the beat of your own drum and figure it out, be willing to admit mistakes, you're going to be just fine.

Alignment will depend on what you want to do, if you're hunting for maximum grip and performance you can go through the track section and read the autox setup and track questions threads, but if you're more focused on street and tire life what the shop recommends will probably be best.