Are 18" wheels too big?

[COBHC]

My car came with a set of 18" wheels with some Nitto NT555 "Extreme ZR" tires on them. I took them off around December and replaced them with 1g GSX wheels (because they were cheap, and it's impossible to find stock 1g talon wheels) so I could have emissions done.It pulled to the right like a mother with the 18s on...I'm assuming the guy didn't have an alignment done. I was wondering if these wheels are too big for the car, or if they will mess up the suspension in any way? If they are too big I'll try and sell them.

any info/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Tyler

[amaank]

I don't think they're too big... my car has 17s on it, seems really comfortable with em. I think 19s would be a little much but 18s should be fine.

[PudrowDSM]

I have 18" Rota Sub-zeros on mine at it handles fine. I have seen people put 19's on the 2g's but thats just retarded from a performance stand point. 17" is the most common, and agreed upon to be the all around street rim size. I my 18's don't even look like 18's so Im glad i didn't get the 17's cause they would have looked really tiny.

Travis

[AWD4G63T]

If you have stock struts on a a 1st gen and 18"s then I've heard that they can rub on the struts. Shouldn't be a problem if you have a coil-over setup that is out of the way though.

Jesse

[COBHC]

Yeah, same here, I thought they were 17s until last weekend when I looked at the tire size...255/40 ZR 18. As far as the suspension goes, it's got the stock struts, but I never noticed any rubbing or anything, and I don't see anything weird about the wear pattern. Sounds like I'll be putting 'em back on soon. Thanks for the info guys, I appreciate it.

Tyler

[PudrowDSM]

Just make sure when you go to buy new tires that you don't get to wide of a tire... I would almost stay away from the 255, maybe get a 225 or 235 at the most. I had 255's on an 18" rim and they rubbed a little on my suspension. Just a heads up.

Travis

[COBHC]

Oops haha, they're actually 225/40ZR18 92W, can anyone tell me what the 92W means? As far as the tires, they're still pretty new, they have a lot of tread left.

Tyler

[slimgsx]

tire size is what matters, I had some 18s on my talon and there was no clearance issues and as far as suspension issues go Ive not heard of a problem aside from clearance issues.

[CU DSM]

Oops haha, they're actually 225/40ZR18 92W, can anyone tell me what the 92W means? As far as the tires, they're still pretty new, they have a lot of tread left.

Tyler

The "92W" refers to their weight rating, or what they call within the tire industry the "load index." The higher the number, the more they can support. It's no big deal for our cars really, so don't worry about it. Now that I've said it's no big deal, you wouldn't want to put anything with an extremely low load index on there, but the tires that pretty much everybody runs will normally more than cover it.

If you want to know more about it though, check this out:
http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoLoadIndex.dos

-Jonathan

[COBHC]

Ok cool, thanks again. Now I'm having other problems. This morning when I left for school (after letting the car warm up) there was a huge cloud of white smoke behind me until I shut the heater off, then it went away. I turned the heater back on to see if it would do it again, but it didn't. It ran fine. I got to school, let it cool off, then shut it down. About an hour later I went back out and started it just to see what would happen, and it was smoking again but not as bad, so I shut it off. When I started it after my last class it was hardly smoking at all. A couple of my friends came to look at it. They think the head gasket might be shot because the block is wet and oily all along the front side. They asked me to rev it, so I did...then there was a weird noise that I'd never heard before, it was like a rattling/scraping between 2,000 and 3,000rpm. It was loudest when I let off. They thought it could either be the throw-out bearing or the cat rattling. Also, when I was driving home I took it easy most of the way, but I let the turbo spool once or twice and it didn't pull like it normally does. I don't know if it helps, but the clutch makes a weird ticking noise when I let it out (in garage, in neutral, car off). Does anyone have any ideas?

Tyler

[CU DSM]

White smoke indicates a coolant leak/burning coolant.

You should drain your oil to see if there's coolant mixed in with it.

Also check your coolant to see if there's oil in it.


-Jonathan

[COBHC]

Yeah I knew that meant it was burning coolant. I need to change the oil anyway, so I'll do that this weekend and check the coolant for oil. If that was the case, what would that indicate?

Tyler

[PudrowDSM]

Yeah I knew that meant it was burning coolant. I need to change the oil anyway, so I'll do that this weekend and check the coolant for oil. If that was the case, what would that indicate?

Tyler

That would mean that they are mixing and the most common place for that to happen would be a head gasket failure in some area. It could be anywhere that a coolant run and oil run are close to each other.

[COBHC]

Ok, I see what you're saying. I'll definitely check that this weekend. Weird thing is, today it seems as though nothing happened yesterday. No smoke, no weird noises, and it seems to pull like normal again. I didn't really get on it (to about 4 or 4,500rpm), but it seems to be running just fine again. :confused:

Tyler

[COBHC]

Well I changed the oil yesterday and there seemed to be no coolant in it. It kinda looked like there might be some in it, but I kept looking and decided there wasn't any. Here are some (crappy) pics.