Pleasant Surprise

Yesterday evening I received a phone-call, the man on the other end was the driver of a freight truck.  I informed him of the place to put the freight, knowing well that my brother would be home in a few minutes to make sure everything remained safe and sound.  I got off the phone with a large grin on my face.  You see the freight that had made it’s way to me today (very promptly and very well priced, I might add.  Thanks goes out to EFFICIENT Moving & Storage, MANA Transport & Richard (Snoozin)) was this;

Ooooh, presents!

What magical things lay inside the wrap?  Well that would be these:

Oooh, shiny!

Despite the appearance in the pictures there is actually four of these, they’re all the same diameter, width and offset.  SpeedStar Racing Longchamp XR-4′s in 14×7.5″ -13 8)

I bought these wheels a while ago now, at the time I got my good friend Richard to pick them up for me, he was on a mission to Auckland for a reason I forget and was happy to add them to his car for the trip home.  So with that, they made their way down to Palmerston North where they have sat in his garage for close to a year now, perhaps longer.  Money is always tight with cars and the wheels themselves did cost me a fair bit of wedge that I would not normally spend on such things.  However, the opportunity arose and I could not say no.  Ultimately they’re not the exact width and size I’m after for my C110 but they will make for a long standing interim setup.

With them now in my posession what else is there to do but try them on some cars! So that’s exactly what I did.  First car to get them as a test was my current daily driver (which is for sale if you’re interested) a 1985 Nissan Silvia S12.  It’s currently wearing my 15×6.5″ SSR Longchamp XR-4′s and there’s just no way that these wider, negative offset wheels would fit on the front without fouling the guard, so I only slapped them on the rear.  To my surprise, they fit perfectly.

Preeeetty much flush with the guard. Smaller tyres than 205 and they would be.

Oh yes, these are some badass wheels...

Hey Jack, what's up?

Staggered offset rims on the 12 would look hot as all hell

The Silvia however, in the grand scheme of things has been more of a hindrance than a help.  The wheels are destined for greater things, my C110 Hardtop.  A car I dailyed for several years, stopping only for two things.  The first time was waiting for Insurance to not be a bunch of scheming little idiots, the second and current time started when I removed the windscreen to replace it, only to be met by rust that the previous owner had “remedied” by the utilization of copious amounts of bog, topped off with some bathroom silicon.  Needless to say, I was unimpressed.  Regardless, onto happier things, the wheels!

I started with the back, simply because I knew there was likely to be some fitment issues with the size of the tyre and the rim and the fact that the C110 and Skylines in general until the R30 shape, had cutoff top arches on the rear.  I removed the current interim Z alloy;

Spare alloys, handy for sitting cars on.

Jack it up

As you can see form this shot, despite the IRS in the 110, this combination was going to be pretty close to not fitting.  The verdict was, with this tyre combo;

FAIL!

That’s the arch sitting on the tyre, you can see how the design of the rear of the 110 doesn’t lend itself too whell to large negative offset rims, at least not with 205′s on them.  You’ll also note the lack of bumpers and body trim on the 110.  It’s all ready to go to be sorted, I’m just waiting on the Silvia to sell so I can fund the rust remedy situation.

Mmm, pretty

Due to where it's sitting, this is the best overall shot I could manage

The car does actually sit lower than this, it’s just that after the arch rested on the tyre, I jacked it up slightly to show how it was fouling and so it wasn’t actually resting on the arch and bending the metal.  With the rear sussed out, it was time to move onto how the front was going to look;

Hello Mr. Tyre

You're protruding Sir, this is not too good.

Overall

So, the front will stick out slightly too.  Or will it?  The basic answer to this is.. No.  Thanks to Ewan at hayatonka.com I’m the proud owner of a set of replica 110GT-R flares that he purchased for me from YAJ (Yahoo! Auctions Japan) What I’ve figured is that once the flares are on the front, the wheels might need to be slightly spaced out to run flush and even more so on the rear.  It’s also going to look as though it’s higher than it really is, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes.  I want to have it all sorted before I look at modifying the ride height.  She’s running brand new shocks and lowering springs through-out, whether they’re actually low enough however is yet to be seen.

So…  someone buy my Silvia so I can get my Skyline back on the road!

Thanks again to;

Richard, you rule my face, clear off, thanks for all the help with these.

EFFICIENT Moving & Storage

MANA Transport

Nissan

SpeedStar

-Michael