Fitting 18" without completely destroying the ride &

[Picto]

How's it done? I've got a 2.0i Galant Sport. The factory alloys are nice but there's just too much space in the arches for my liking.

I know that if I just whack a set of 18" on there without making any other adjustments it'll drive like crap and damage the car over time. I also know the ride will be considerably worse with 18" no matter what I do.

So what do I need to do to prevent/minimalize this? And how much money are we talking here?

[waynne]

What are the standard wheel sizes? If you fit low profile tyres you might be able to keep the same overall dimension and preserve handling and not have to mess around with getting the speedo recalibrated. Stiffer springs will help a little but lowering on 18's can make the handling worse on larger wheel sizes. Personally I would go with 17's as they are cheaper unless that is what you have got on there at teh moment and then I would lower the car 30mm to help fill the arches. This should save problems of grounding, tramlining and bumping.

17s are also much cheaper to get and tyres are cheaper too! Welcome to the site and it is nice to have you along.

[Picto]

Originally Posted by waynne

What are the standard wheel sizes? If you fit low profile tyres you might be able to keep the same overall dimension and preserve handling and not have to mess around with getting the speedo recalibrated. Stiffer springs will help a little but lowering on 18's can make the handling worse on larger wheel sizes. Personally I would go with 17's as they are cheaper unless that is what you have got on there at teh moment and then I would lower the car 30mm to help fill the arches. This should save problems of grounding, tramlining and bumping.

17s are also much cheaper to get and tyres are cheaper too! Welcome to the site and it is nice to have you along.

Cheers for the welcome. There's a pic of the car, it's got 17" on it already with fairly thin tyres.

Would rather get a set of 18" in there than lower it anymore, the front bumper hits the ground coming out of my driveway as it is! I'd rather not use really thin tyres as well, I go to Ireland quite a lot and the roads there would eat a set of really low profile tyres

[waynne]

Thats a nice looking car. I see why you want to go up to 18's and I suppose it is only another inch. Stiffer suspension (not lower) will help the ride quality a little but you are getting pretty close to having clearance problems with 18's you may need to get the arches rolled a little.