I have purchased a set of 16 inch ACT aftermarket wheels from a club member and they have excellent 205/55 16 tires on them. I have test fitted them and found that they appear to clear the front struts and rod ends by about a cm (1/4 to 3/8") and the tire rotates freely --Is this this sufficient clearance for normal street use? --The stock bolts appear to seat after about 6 threads (turns) on the original wheels but only about 3 threads on the after market wheels is there a maximun/minimun recommended wheel bolt length? --What are the maximum front and rear 16" tire sizes recommended with and without hub centric spacers? Is there an older thread on wheel upgrades that you would recommend? Thanks for your input, Bill Boro
Yes. I've seen less ... I don't know if I'd be comfortable with that much thread. You might want to source some longer bolts. Hubcentric spacers have nothing to do with tire sizes. They only match the center hole of the wheel to the hub when a larger one is used. Typically, you would need the hubcentric spacers for 74mm wheels on your E24. Not here. But there's far more than you want to know over at MyE28.com. Given that the E24 has a chassis that's virtually identical to the E28, you can often find more valuable information there than elsewhere. As for tire clearance issues, the E24 has slightly more room than the E28, at least in the rear. In the front, they're essentially the same.
you're thinking of hubcentric rings, a hubcentric spacer would move the wheel farther out and with too wide a tire you might have rubbing on the fender
Goodridge T/A v.s. Fusion tires for street use Thanks for the great technical input Guys. The 205/55-16 tires& wheels went on the front with out a hitch no spacers required. These front tires are "like new" Goodridge Comp T/As. The rear, which has more inner clearance (no strut tower or steering hardware to deal with) now has a set of 225/55-16 Fusion directional tires. These have about 70% tread remaining. I'm not sure but given the 1/4" clearance up front with the smaller 205/55-16s, I'm guessing that I will need spacers to move the fatter 225/55 tire away from the suspension and steering parts if they were used up front. Right now the I am mixing these two brands for economy reasons. This car is a hobby car and not a daily driver or track car. I mostly drive it to local club events and to the car wash. The old tires were 195/70-14 Dunlop 2000's with most of the tread remaining but were dry rotting and cracking. Suprisingly the new tire wheel combination weighs about 10lbs. more per wheel even though they look much less massive, e.g. more aluminum and less rubber. Does any one have any comments on which way I should go---- T/As or Fusions--- when I match the tires at a later date? Thanks again Bill
Good News for you because offset spacers will usually cost about the same as a set of used wheels. Seriously, these things aren't cheap (hubcentric rings are; a few bucks each) and I would prefer not to run them on any car if at all possible. There are plenty of wheels that fit the E24 just fine. 'Goodrich'. I once worked there. More precisely, "BFGoodrich" (no spaces; no periods). Either that (expensive) or a proper tire size on a proper wheel size. My pal, Shawn D., has done a nice summary presented here. It's well worth a read. At least they were the same size. With your 'staggered' set, you are only aggravating the understeer that a stock E24 has. I'd be constantly aware of that if I were you. No big surprise. A 16" wheel rim has to have more metal in it than a smaller diameter 14" rim. It takes more metal to extend the spokes out there, too. Lower profile tires also tend to have heavier sidewalls in order to absorb road shock over a smaller sidewall area. Where you can easily push in the sidewall of a 195/70-14 with your thumb, you can't make a dent in a typical 245/45-18 like my wife's Jaguar wears. That weight is also carried farther out from the center than it is on the 14" set, so the 16" set will feel heavier and more ponderous through the wheel and on the road. The 14" wheels & tires probably came off a 528 as a common sense alternative to replacing mediocre $200+ Michelin TRXs. A 16" wheel is a good upgrade, but in order to work well, it has to fit well. Use Shawn D.'s wheel & tire information to pick out a good one and then track it down. Don't 'make do' with wheels that aren't even close to fitting. I wouldn't do either. I'd replace all four at once - probably with a 205/55.
And don't forget most after-market wheels weigh a lot more than a wheel from the vehicle manufacturer. This is a function of the inexpensive way the after-market wheels are made where more metal is substituted for better engineering and type of casting or forging. The cheaper the wheel the heavier they seem to be and yet they are often not as strong as a stock wheel in the same size.
