Wheel Fitment
April 2018:
Right after finishing the air suspension install I got some 19x9.5 cast wheels to run for the spring. This also allowed me to learn the wheel clearances of the car and figure out the exact widths and offsets to build my future forged wheels.
The first few pictures is aired out and the last one is my drive height. These wheels are also chicken approved.
Wheels: 19" RSR R701 19x9.5 (+40 Rear, +33 Front)
Tires: Achilles ATR Sport 2 235/35/19
10MM spacers installed on all 4 corners
-2° front and -2.5° rear camber at ride height
June 2018:
After way to much time researching forged wheels, I ended up going with BC Forged. They took about 8 weeks to be built.
My goal was maximum width, maximum lip size, lip to fender fitment, and moderate camber. I did some rough calculations to figure out how big I could go using my cast wheels as a starting point. BC Forged told me the lip size would increase with every 6mm difference in offset so I gave myself a safe calculation and a max calculation. I ended up going with option 2.
BC Forged MLE210 2-Piece Wheels (Front: 19x9.5 +14, Rear: 19x11 +32). Brushed clear faces with polished lips and bolts.
It took me a while to decide on tires. I wanted just enough stretch for a lip to fender fitment but not too much were I would lose road contact. Also taking note of what brands look good stretched. I looked at pictures of tires on tyrestretch.com for hours and finally decided on size and brand.
Federal SS-595 Tires (Front: 225/35/19, Rear: 265/30/19)
Now time to make them fit!
Here is the first time with the wheels on the car, the rear will need a lot more camber added.
My goal is to have the car air out about 3mm from lip to fender so all the weight is on the suspension and not the fenders.
Prior to this day I slightly rolled the front fenders. The rear fenders are rolled from the factory.
The front lower mount adjustment is straight forward. Unplug air line, loosen lock collar, and twist bag assembly.
Bag to lock collar distance is 76mm
The front camber worked out for me since it was perfect with the Air Lift camber plates maxed out.
I also changed the front 3H sensor linkage length to stay within range of my lower mount adjustments. I can see that the sensor is happy when aired out.
Front dialed in!
The rear shock is the same process but a little easier since there is no air line to deal with. Since I knew I had to raise the rear suspension a lot to get lip to fender, I didn't want to make all the adjustments in the lower mount. The lower mount was not long enough and it would drastically change the shock ride height range. I made a shock spacer out of a Delrin rod for the car could air out on. I then made lower mount adjustments with it installed.
Top of shock to lock collar distance is 153mm
Shock spacer length is 26mm
I also adjusted the Megan Racing front and rear camber arms so the wheel lined up with the fender perfectly.
I only had to adjust the rear 3H sensor linkage a hair since my adjustments didn't increase upward suspension travel.
Rear dialed in!
Here are my notes throughout the adjustment process. For each wheel my process was to jack up car, remove wheel, thread down lower mount by X turns, put wheel back on, lower car down, air out, measure, and repeat. Doing this until I could see that slight gap between lip and fender. As you can see from my notes, I did this for every crossed out number. It took a long time...
First time sitting right in the shop! I now ran the re-calibration wizard on the Air Lift 3H controller since I adjusted everything.
In my opinion, making the wheels fit well is the most important and stressful part of the entire install. What you can see here is fully aired out with the wheels just barely not touching the fenders. This gives me the look I want without ever damaging my fenders. It took me most of the weekend to finally get them to this point, and I am very happy with the results!
Since I adjusted the front suspension so much it now has a huge amount of lift! This is 95 PSI in the front bags and 145 PSI in the rear bags. I could not drive like this but is it useful for getting into steep driveways.
Here is ride height with pressures. Camber specs are:
-2.5° front and -4° rear camber at ride height
September 2019:
I picked up some some F80 M3 M437 wheels as a spare set.
I love the OEM+ look of these. Both aired out and at drive height.
February 2020:
I decided to get moar camber! I got adjustable front lower control arms and increased the camber in the back to match it all up at about -5 degrees. I cover this install in the Air Suspension area.
June 2021:
After waiting 6 months to get new 2.5" lips, it's finally time to rebuild the BBS RS2s I bought last year.
First I bolted the lips and barrels together with (16) 1/4"-20 bolts into the the countersunk holes. This adds extra strength since the faces only have 16 bolts and are originally 2 piece wheels. I used red Loctite on each bolt and torqued them to 14 ft/lbs.
Second I installed the polished M7 bolts into the face and torqued them all to 20 ft/lbs.
Finally I sealed them up with black silicone and got the tires mounts on them. They come out amazing!
Here are the final wheel specs.
Front: 19x10 +25 2.5in lip with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires 235/35
Rear: 19x11 +37 2.5in lip with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires 265/30
July 2021:
I started having issues snapping bolts holding the face on so I ended up upgrading all the hardware to strengthen them up.
I drilled out the holes on the lips and barrels from 7.5mm to 8mm and installed 12.9 M8 bolts on the faces and wider head M8 bolts on the lips. Now I was able to tighten them all to 32 ft/lbs.
March 2022:
I was still having issues with the wheels creaking when driving and just felt unsafe running them. I took them apart AGAIN and this time got the lips and barrels professionally welded together. Now they are a 2 piece welded wheel as they were from the factory. I still installed the 1/4"-20 back onto the lips and barrels to fill in the holes and for the sake of redundancy. I also still used the M8 hardware on the faces for them to be attached as strong as possible.
I ran them on my car for a couple thousand miles in 2022 and the welding solved all my issues. They are perfectly safe wheels now!
April 2022:
I picked up some 20" Richland Forged GT4 in brushed clear. I always wanted a set of 20" wheels to tuck and these look amazing! I got their M3 spec wheels so they would fit aggressively on my F30.
Fronts: 20" x 9.5" +22 with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires 245/30
Rears: 20" x 10.5" +35 with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires 265/30
