Wheels & Tires

After 7 months of driving the car stock, I finally decided to make a change.  I'm much more of a handling guy than a power guy so the first step I made toward improving the car was ditching the stock wheels and tires and replacing them with something that provided better handling.



The Works came with 16x6.5in wheels with 205/55/16 Bridgestone Potenza RE92 tires.  The 16in wheel size didn't both me as much as the rolling compromise that is the RE92 tires did.  Terrible wet and snow weather performance combined with less than adequit dry weather grip cause the car to give up the ghost in just about any situation where yo asked the car to turn.  The tires had to go, and a little visual stimuli never hurts, so I got new wheels as well.

Wanting to keep the car a little under the radar (or as under the radar as a retina scorching blue car can be) I decided to go with a set of STi rims from the JDM V7 STi.  at 17x7.5 in they are an inch larger in ever dimension.  The addition inch in width will increase the amount of tire I can run and therefore increase grip in the turns while the extra inch in diameter allows me to run a tire with a shorter sidewall.  The shorter sidewall will, theoretically, deflect less than a taller sidewall which will improve turn-in response; something the stock WRX could use.

The down side to the wheels is that they are heavy.  Really heavy.  With the new tires the wheels are more than 7 pounds heavier per corner.  That's terrible for handling and acceleration.

For tires I went with Falkin Azenis RT215 tires in a 225/45/17 size.  The tires are much, much stiffer and have way more grip than the RE92s and the difference is shocking.  The speeds you can carry through turns compared to the stock tires is like apples to oranges that you shot out of a canon.  While the dramatic increase in grip is very much appreciated, the extra road noise is not.  It sounds like I put mud tires on the car.  I can live with it, but it isn't ideal.  I may go with a less aggressive tire once these wear out.

The other problem that the new tires brought out is that where before I was aware that the stock suspension was really soft, now I am more than aware.  If you dive into a turn with too much speed, the suspension of the loaded corner starts to shake violently because the spring rates are too soft for the amount of grip the tires can generate.  Anti Roll Bars (ARBs) and springs are on the list.

Sadly, a week after I got the new wheels and tires, some college girl decided it would be a good idea to make a u-turn into the passenger side rear of my car while i was doing 40MPH.  This sent my car spinning 180* and smashing into a parked car.  The drivers side of the car from the A pillar back was completely smashed in and the rear suspension on both sides were bent.  it would take over a month to get the car back and the work that was done to it was done poorly, and pieces were missing.  I'll address that in future posts.

Total cost: $1569.00