Update 10/04/2020 - Easter Weekend Jobs - Part 2: Fitting Wheels
In february this year I posted my car goals for the year, the first goal was: 1. Order a set of forged wheels. I must have spent 18 months looking for a new set of wheels to swap over from the 949 Racing wheels prior to this, as I wanted a new look. I've always wanted to fit a set of forged wheels to the car and there are a couple of sets that I really like, these are:
1. Rays Volks TE37 Saga in Bronze, size: 17x9 +42
2. Rays Volks ZE40 in Bronze, size: 18x9 +40
3. Titan 7 TS5 in Satin Titanium, size: 17x9 +37
Owning a set of Rays would be the dream as they are highly regarded as the top wheel manufacturer in the JDM market and being a massive JDM fan this means a lot to me.
I'd originally spoke to @
Lucas@PartBox a while ago about a set of Rays, he informed that a set of Rays Volks (either wheel) would mean spending atleast of £3K on a set, which I wasn't keen on. I therefore looked into importing a set from Japan, however with shipping, taxes and import duty they'd probably end up near enough the same price, plus should there be anything wrong with the wheels it'd be a massive pain to sort out and I wasn't going to pay £2K+ for a set of wheels with no UK contact. Because of this, it basically put an end to the idea of ordering a set of Rays.
The third option is from a relatively new company in the form of Titan 7, they sell a wheel called: TS5, these looked ideal however I wanted something vibrant after running a black wheel for a couple of years. Whilst Titan 7 offer a Bronze finish, they only do this for selected fitments and weren't prepared to offer this on the 86/BRZ fitment, typically they once did a limited run of the bronze in the past, which I missed out on. This left a Satin Titanium finish, which is extremely nice in itself, however it wasn't what I was really after. Whilst I could get these from a UK seller I wasn't 100% sure on them due to colour and my thoughts being if I'm buying forged wheels I'd rather buy Rays.
This ultimately left me with a dilemma, do I spend over £3K on a set of Rays or do I bin the idea? In february I decided to ask @
Lucas@PartBox what Rays wheels Partbox had instock for the 86/BRZ or could get relevately quickly. They had a set of blue Gramlights 57DR in 18x9.5 +38 wheels in stock, again this wasn't what I wanted but Lucas did say they could get a number of 57CR's in various colours in within a month, colours being: Sakura Pink, Gold, Bronze, Semi-Gloss Black, Black Chrome and Gunmetal Blue. Knowing several other members are running these wheels I wasn't sure on the idea, as I wanted something different. After some google-fu I found out the 57CR's in 17x9 only weight 8.2KG, this changed my mind on these wheels and I realised they actually make alot of sense, it's a wheel in a size I've run before, no-one else in the UK 86/BRZ community was running this wheel in that size (that I'm aware of, at that time anyway) as everyone goes for 18" version, they are relatively light for a cast wheel and good value at only £1200 and once I've added tyres and accessories it'd come in at under £2k, which was a much nicer figure. Now the choice was which colour do I go for, I'd looked at the 57CR's in the past and wanted them in either Gold or White, as white wasn't available this left only one colour choice Gold. A quick confirmation with Lucas and the wheels were ordered. Less than a month later, to both our surprise Lucas informed me the wheels had arrived. I then sealed the wheels using G-Techniq W5 Wheel Armour and overcoated with G-Techniq Exo V4.
In the mean time I ordered some Rays Dura-Nuts L42 wheel nuts in Blue, Gramlight 57CR center caps in blue & black chrome, Rays metal spigot rings and Rays blue valve caps from Nengun Performance in Japan, along with a set of black (D4S) TRD fender fins. I've wanted a set of fender fins for a while, ideally in carbon however they stopped producing these a couple of years ago, this left black as the next logical colour. Typically these parts took much longer to arrive than the wheels as there was a delay with the production of the fender fins. I also had a shipping issue, I ordered the parts before the CoronaVirus fully hit and used a work address, when I found out the parts had been shipped I had to get this swapped to my home address and yet typically the courier still tried to deliver it to the work address despite being expressly told to change it. A few days later the parts arrived and I could begin fitting them.
Now from some photos, firstly the wheels and tyres:
