'05 WRX Wheel Stancing

robotdna

robotdna

Active member
Hello all! I recently had the honor of spending some savings (saved since I was a wee little lad) on a used 2005 Blue WRX. I'd like to get a second set of wheels so I can have a summer set and winter set.

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I'm curious if any of you know what the maximum wheel size (diameter? Width? Offset?) I can get away with for this vehicle is. I really don't have the money or confidence to try rolling and pulling my fenders, so I'd just like to get something as wide and large as possible that will fit in the stock body. I'm completely new to the car world and have no idea what I'm really talking about.

In case you're curious, the current stats of the OEM 05 WRX wheels on it are: 16x6.5", +55 offset, with the common 5x100 bolt pattern.

More information: I was thinking of placing some Hankook Ventus V12 Evos on the wheels for the tires. They seemed like a good all-around summer tire.

I'm going for more of a street-racy, low and fast pavement machine look rather than the raised, rally charger look.

tldr; How large of wheels can I fit inside my 05 WRX without needing modification or grinding my tires? :P

Thank you SO much for your help, I'm so lost.
 
you want to do it right? Stick with 16's, dont get the widest rim you can fit, go a little narrower, and get a tire that fits the rim, none of that stretched mexican looking shit. the tires flex is a very important aspect of the cars suspension/handling. you basically remove that entire aspect when you stretch a tire over a giant rim.

or just stick with the stock width and run spacers. that way if its too wide you can just get narrower spacers.
 
at least 17's, 18's with low pro's if you can. Check out nasioc.com, there will be way more info there than here
 
13405871:XtRemE11 said:
you want to do it right? Stick with 16's, dont get the widest rim you can fit, go a little narrower, and get a tire that fits the rim, none of that stretched mexican looking shit. the tires flex is a very important aspect of the cars suspension/handling. you basically remove that entire aspect when you stretch a tire over a giant rim.

or just stick with the stock width and run spacers. that way if its too wide you can just get narrower spacers.
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I don't think I'm intending to stretch my tires. I would get a fitting tire. I just need to know how large I can go.

Also a friend just told me he has a fender roller and would roll my fenders for free. I suppose that opens up some options, no?
 
Are you going to straight stance? Camber, stretched tires, coilovers.

Or are you going for more functional or track stance? Aero, low but not scraping everywhere, fat and fitted tires, no stretch.
 
as far as fitment goes, you can get away with anything above et30 without having fender work but it really all depends on how low you want to go. My car is 4 inches lower than OEM and i have a +35 offset and had to pull my fenders, not sure how they are on subies though. Any width from 8 to 9.5 will look fine and sit flush with your body without looking ridiculous. I have hankook ventus tires and theyre great.

as far as wheels go.... you want 17in and up.

What's your budget? Also do not get reps.
 
13406599:Titus69 said:
Are you going to straight stance? Camber, stretched tires, coilovers.

Or are you going for more functional or track stance? Aero, low but not scraping everywhere, fat and fitted tires, no stretch.
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A little of both, but more towards the track side. I don't want the hellaflush super cambered and dragging on the ground, but I'd like it lower and wide, with no tire stretch. More like a race car. :3 I may end up purchasing coilovers in the future anyway, but my budget is pretty much restricted to a little more than 1k for the wheels and tires. After that I'm just going to be keeping some funds for things like maintenance and insurance haha.
 
13405871:XtRemE11 said:
you want to do it right? Stick with 16's, dont get the widest rim you can fit, go a little narrower, and get a tire that fits the rim, none of that stretched mexican looking shit. the tires flex is a very important aspect of the cars suspension/handling. you basically remove that entire aspect when you stretch a tire over a giant rim.

or just stick with the stock width and run spacers. that way if its too wide you can just get narrower spacers.
Click to expand...

why would you not get wider wheels? if you are concerned about the handling of a car you would most certainly go wider/lighter wheels
 
13406626:gengar. said:
as far as fitment goes, you can get away with anything above et30 without having fender work but it really all depends on how low you want to go. My car is 4 inches lower than OEM and i have a +35 offset and had to pull my fenders, not sure how they are on subies though. Any width from 8 to 9.5 will look fine and sit flush with your body without looking ridiculous. I have hankook ventus tires and theyre great.

as far as wheels go.... you want 17in and up.

What's your budget? Also do not get reps.
Click to expand...

every car is different. my evo i can run +15 without having to roll/pull on a 3 inch drop. I know subarus have to run a lot more offset but Nasioc would be more useful than either of us telling him wheel specs.
 
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But seriously DON'T STANCE IT.

For color of your wheels it is your opinion do what you want but keep in mind that if you put any colored wheels on your car it will probably look bad. Try and keep to black, white or a metallic color. Personally my favorite wheel color is a dark bronze.
 
If you want to stance start saving for another winter car.

If you just want some decent summer wheels, look on craigslist for some used bbs wheels off an sti. You wont have any fitment issues and they are quality wheels. Don't worry to much about color as you can always just plasti dip them. Personally if I owned a rally blue wrx id be looking for gold wheels or dip them gold as that's a classic suby look that never gets old. Nice car.
 
13407210:onLINE said:
If you want to stance start saving for another winter car.

If you just want some decent summer wheels, look on craigslist for some used bbs wheels off an sti. You wont have any fitment issues and they are quality wheels. Don't worry to much about color as you can always just plasti dip them. Personally if I owned a rally blue wrx id be looking for gold wheels or dip them gold as that's a classic suby look that never gets old. Nice car.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure that stis have different lug patterns than stis.
 
13407210:onLINE said:
If you want to stance start saving for another winter car.

If you just want some decent summer wheels, look on craigslist for some used bbs wheels off an sti. You wont have any fitment issues and they are quality wheels. Don't worry to much about color as you can always just plasti dip them. Personally if I owned a rally blue wrx id be looking for gold wheels or dip them gold as that's a classic suby look that never gets old. Nice car.
Click to expand...

Why would you ever plasti dip your wheels
 
13406806:Davin said:
why would you not get wider wheels? if you are concerned about the handling of a car you would most certainly go wider/lighter wheels
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A lot of shit goes into the handling of a car. changing one aspect of the geometry can have an effect on everything else. a wider track width means more leverage, so a softer effective spring rate. it also changes the roll center, reduces the load to the outside tires in cornering, which effects how the loaded side of the car works during cornering, etc.. you're usually not going to see ONLY an improvement, its most likely going to hurt some things and improve others.

a lot of times when you throw on wide tires and dont touch anything else, especially for a car that sees only road use on street tires,(doesnt have the grip to transfer a lot of load in corners) you dont take full advantage of the stock camber, so when the car is loaded in a corner, its using a smaller portion of its contact patch. ( so you could have much wider tires yet have less touching the road than skinnier tires)

WRX's understeer like a mofo, personally id be purely focused on fixing the balance of the car, then worry about overall grip. not just doing the typical wide wheels stiff suspension thing which half the time only hurts performance.
 
13407255:crotchvent said:
Pretty sure that stis have different lug patterns than stis.
Click to expand...

But to clarify that 05 and up stis went to 5x114.3, wrx wheels are still 5x100. You would need wheels off an 04 or older Sti to fit
 
13407388:XtRemE11 said:
A lot of shit goes into the handling of a car. changing one aspect of the geometry can have an effect on everything else. a wider track width means more leverage, so a softer effective spring rate. it also changes the roll center, reduces the load to the outside tires in cornering, which effects how the loaded side of the car works during cornering, etc.. you're usually not going to see ONLY an improvement, its most likely going to hurt some things and improve others.

a lot of times when you throw on wide tires and dont touch anything else, especially for a car that sees only road use on street tires,(doesnt have the grip to transfer a lot of load in corners) you dont take full advantage of the stock camber, so when the car is loaded in a corner, its using a smaller portion of its contact patch. ( so you could have much wider tires yet have less touching the road than skinnier tires)

WRX's understeer like a mofo, personally id be purely focused on fixing the balance of the car, then worry about overall grip. not just doing the typical wide wheels stiff suspension thing which half the time only hurts performance.
Click to expand...

i love it when car people think that they know everything and that everyone else knows nothing. i understand the concepts of turning a car....

going from a fucking 235 to a 260+ will help on stock suspension all fucking day. we arent talking going from a 6 inch wheel to a 13.5 inch wheel homie...
 
fuck new wheels, get to "stage 2" first

register an account at nasioc, everything you ever wanted to know about your car is there.
 
13407460:Six.0.Tree-ski said:
But to clarify that 05 and up stis went to 5x114.3, wrx wheels are still 5x100. You would need wheels off an 04 or older Sti to fit
Click to expand...

Yea that's right I just couldn't remember the years for it and new that most of them wouldn't fit. Thanks for clarifying that.
 
just invest in slightly lower suspension for increased performance and sleek look without bigger rims(makes them seem bigger though) and buy some nice tires like super sports for the summer. your handling will increase a lot.
 
13408616:THESAUCEPOSSE said:
if you slam/stance that shit, be prepared for the car to no longer drive in the winter

just keep that in mind
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If you have a subaru thats low enough to snow plow in wintery weather, you bought the wrong car to stance. Subarus are meant to pound through snow not get stuck in half a foot. Keep it functional OP, at least in the winter.
 
Modifying a car for looks, not performance = Whatever

Modifying a car for looks, that reduces performance = Stupid.

Do whatever you want, just make sure it actually improves the car, for what you want it to do. None of that stance shit.
 
13407655:Davin said:
i love it when car people think that they know everything and that everyone else knows nothing. i understand the concepts of turning a car....

going from a fucking 235 to a 260+ will help on stock suspension all fucking day. we arent talking going from a 6 inch wheel to a 13.5 inch wheel homie...
Click to expand...

Eh id debate that, ive seen quite a few autocross/track day guys go slower with some of the typical simple mods you would think are no brainers. the biggest one is sway bars, giant sway bars are fucking retarded, and everyone thinks its such an improvement.

wheel related ones would be people running super wide spacers and going slower, or a good example is this guy who had a couple wheelsets with the same tire. one set being his "race" specific, super light set, with a bit wider offset. same width though. went quite a bit slower with the "race" set. it felt softer at max load and tracking over bumps was worse. Ive personally run cheap heavy ass wheels and actually felt an improvement with how it tracks over bumps, if you've got shitty stockish suspension, its adding unsprung weight (which is and should be bad) and doesnt let the suspension act as much/quick over small bumps, basically stiffens high speed compression/rebound.

Just saying, people need to put thought into what they're throwing on their car if they are going for performance, id say most the time its just making it look and feel stiff and "race car!" driving around town but when you drive it at the limit it fucking sucks.
 
A lot of people don't understand car love. Nice ride. Don't spray/wrap it matte black pls

I can't help you out though, I know very little...
 
13408705:XtRemE11 said:
Eh id debate that, ive seen quite a few autocross/track day guys go slower with some of the typical simple mods you would think are no brainers. the biggest one is sway bars, giant sway bars are fucking retarded, and everyone thinks its such an improvement.

wheel related ones would be people running super wide spacers and going slower, or a good example is this guy who had a couple wheelsets with the same tire. one set being his "race" specific, super light set, with a bit wider offset. same width though. went quite a bit slower with the "race" set. it felt softer at max load and tracking over bumps was worse. Ive personally run cheap heavy ass wheels and actually felt an improvement with how it tracks over bumps, if you've got shitty stockish suspension, its adding unsprung weight (which is and should be bad) and doesnt let the suspension act as much/quick over small bumps, basically stiffens high speed compression/rebound.

Just saying, people need to put thought into what they're throwing on their car if they are going for performance, id say most the time its just making it look and feel stiff and "race car!" driving around town but when you drive it at the limit it fucking sucks.
Click to expand...

Don't even bother, NS is just a bunch of boy racers. They don't care about performance, or even functionality, they just want to throw money at a car so its "modded" and becomes a personal reflection of their bad ass bro personality.
 
13408810:boppin said:
Don't even bother, NS is just a bunch of boy racers. They don't care about performance, or even functionality, they just want to throw money at a car so its "modded" and becomes a personal reflection of their bad ass bro personality.
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But VTec bro. My car is so fast.
 
13408810:boppin said:
Don't even bother, NS is just a bunch of boy racers. They don't care about performance, or even functionality, they just want to throw money at a car so its "modded" and becomes a personal reflection of their bad ass bro personality.
Click to expand...

But VTec bro. My car is so fast.
 
13408810:boppin said:
Don't even bother, NS is just a bunch of boy racers. They don't care about performance, or even functionality, they just want to throw money at a car so its "modded" and becomes a personal reflection of their bad ass bro personality.
Click to expand...

But Vtech bro it makes my car so fast
 
13408810:boppin said:
Don't even bother, NS is just a bunch of boy racers. They don't care about performance, or even functionality, they just want to throw money at a car so its "modded" and becomes a personal reflection of their bad ass bro personality.
Click to expand...

wheres your racekar homie? anyone can talk shit on someones opinion.
 
13408810:boppin said:
Don't even bother, NS is just a bunch of boy racers. They don't care about performance, or even functionality, they just want to throw money at a car so its "modded" and becomes a personal reflection of their bad ass bro personality.
Click to expand...

Lol. I'm keeping my WRX stock. I don't really need to be going any faster than I already do on the public highways of Montana. Plenty fun ripping through the mountains in it the way it is, no need to turn it into a money pit and start modding it.
 
Are you planning on driving it on dirt roads, or are you wanting it to look nice while driving on roads over the summer?

I personally would just get proper rubber on it, some proper coils and skidplates, and have fun sliding it around off roads.

Have fun building man, it looks like a clean car!
 
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