• The development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system, is prohibited using the contents and materials on this website.

Ownership Verified: Lancer of DOOM!

When you go through these pads, get some Brembo HP-2000. They're sweet. :cool:
 
Hey, it's my thread.

The Lulzcer gets new pads put on (as opposed to put on my dinner table) and brakes bled tomorrow. Hooray, Lulzcer.
 
All right, it's probably time to pop this out of NSFW. Case was settled--not for as much as I had hoped for given the fact that my hand almost always hurts now, but it's over with. All I'll say is: never, ever get Farmers or one of their related companies. They're awful, and they didn't even want to pay me up 'til the very last minute. That scumbag company even delayed signing the papers and forking over the cash after being ordered to pay me off in court. They finally did it, but it took some prodding to make them do it. The worst. The absolute worst.

As for the car, which still rules...

I need new tires. I like the Z2s. They hold up to a surprising amount of abuse. But I noticed that the very Z2-like-treaded RE-71Rs are slightly cheaper, and the RE-11s are even cheaper so. Thing is, the Z2s don't wear super-duper fast, and they don't seem to overheat and lose grip so often on regular track runs. Would either of the Bridgestones hold up as well? I think the RE-11 might be OK, but the RE-71R I think might be more geared towards autocross (and the hardcore autocross set who only uses them for autocross--not so much my "lol I have tires on the car right now" pattern of use).

Also, the car's throwing a P0420 code and throwing up a stupid Service Engine Soon light. :( Between this, the Porsche's rusted off muffler, and my dream tow vehicle that I'd still buy on some kind of brown Cayenne black market if I won the lottery tomorrow, exhaust sucks and I'm done with it. { flips table }

Grumble.

Car still runs well, though. Good Lulzcer.
 
Haven't gotten a CEL in a little while. Probably an O2 sensor.

But I got new tires and an alignment done, and the joy is back. Gonna go hoon the Lulzcer. Awwww yeah.
 
I keep forgetting to update the Lancer thread. Sorry.

Regular Car Reviews finally reviewed the most regular car of all time, the Lancer: https://jalopnik.com/i-scared-mr-regular-in-my-mitsubishi-lancer-gts-on-a-r-1827289883

I am apparently a frightening passenger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0rP4SqXP04

Never mind that I absolutely felt like Mr. Regular here when my instructors on the 'Ring kept telling me to keep my foot flat through fast turns, haha.

Current status: needs new wheels (multiple wheels are bent), also needs new brake pads and rotors up front. I took a buyout at work, so hire me so I can fix my dumb car.
 
Are the tires still good to transfer or are you getting new tires as well?
 
The tires look all right! There's life in them there RE71Rs yet!

The only problem is that Austin's roads really, actually deserve that "Straßenschäden" sign. All of them. All the time. Whether it's a sticking-up manhole or poorly kludged-together construction zone, I want to kick someone in the testicles at City Hall for killing my car's stock wheels. I have two known bent wheels, possibly three or more given the VIOLENT SHAKING that I have on the freeway that developed after I hit a stupid metal plate they didn't asphalt down properly in my neighborhood. The known rears are now low thanks to the fact that they won't hold a proper seal anymore. I'm angry. The city gave an el shruggeroo when I complained about the VIOLENT SHAKING ordeal after hitting a plate in my new neighborhood. I should've run a dashcam. The street was pitch black and the plate wasn't clearly marked. I'm so angry. Screw this state and its garbage roads forever.

Or I could get smart and get 17" wheels to replace the current 18-inchers.

The one caveat is that my tires look........okay? I guess I could sell them to someone looking for moderately used, year-old fun tires, but 215/45/18 is a little bit of a weirdo size.

Getting stock replacements is out. They bend too easily, new ones from the dealership are half as much as my 944 was, and old ones don't seem like they can be trusted. I tried repairing a wheel once, and the buttholes at Wheel Technologies (the place everyone recommended, who was a pain to deal with to boot) didn't sand down the paint before repainting it, so the second my lugnuts went back on, the new paint chipped off. Never go there. Ever.

So, I need some help. How do I navigate the world of aftermarket wheels? The stock wheel specs list a 18" x 7" wheel size, 46mm offset, with a 5x114.3 bolt pattern. I know I have weirdo t h i c c lugnuts, though. Am I going to have to buy new nuts?

I've been looking mostly at Tire Rack since they claim certain wheels will fit my car, and I've narrowed it down to a couple options that I liked:

RPF1s: These are so common that I feel like they will be in production until the end of time. That's largely why these are the front runner right now. Also, they're the cheaper option I liked. If Austin's trash roads eat another wheel, good news! I can easily get another one. There's a 17x7 with a 45mm offset that seems like it'd work, although I'm wondering if the difference in offset would make it stick out any? There's also a 17x7.5 with a 48 offset, but how does that change things? I know up to a 235-width tire works on this car without rubbing, from what other people have tried on the forums. I've run 225s without issue before on the 7-inch-wide rims. How much change is 0.5" going to be, really? And what's the better bet, 7" wide or 7.5"?

There's an 18x7.5 option with a 48mm offset, but the lone appeal of sticking to 18s is being able to keep using the 215/45/18 RE71Rs that aren't dead yet. Otherwise, I fear that these, too, will encounter a sad, untimely end thanks to the stupid plate that's now sticking up in the middle of Enfield, or the perpetual construction happening a block over, or any number of stupid, half-assed, poorly reassembled projects around the city of Austin. Have I mentioned that the urge to move to Stuttgart where the roads were a lot better, the maultaschen were excellent, the Nürburgring was close, and there were good pre-production 911s all over the place is extremely high?!

My other main concern with going down an inch in diameter is tire availability. With the 18x7s, I can just move over to a 225/45/18 size to get most of the fun tires that aren't RE71Rs. And since (for now) I still work at home and mostly drive this a) to coffee or b) to mess around, hell yes to keeping fun summer tires on.

Alleggerita HLTs: They're simple! They're light! And they're pretty! These are also popular enough that I feel like finding replacements in the case of a worst-case scenario would be fine, however, finding them in the color that I want might be the hang-up. I really, really liked the shiny graphite color, but they're down to three left in that particular finish on close-out. That doesn't help me much. Shiny silver is available in a 17x7, albeit with a 49mm offset that'll (if I understand offset correctly???) stick out more than stock. There's an 18x7.5 with a 48mm offset, but that seems like the same problem?

The matte graphite finish has more colors available, but bleh. Matte. Not a super fan there. There's a number of other selections—black, bronze, etc.—but I think anything darker than graphite would get lost in the Lancer's high sides. I like the shiny silver visually breaking up the big ol' slab that is the side of my car, even if I'm garbage at cleaning it. (That was the big argument in favor of graphite, but matte seems too trendy and meh. Give me shiny or give me...well, a nice, soft, stinky cheese would do. Maybe a brie, or fromager d'affinois. YES. With the little herbs in it. YES, YES, THAT'S IT.)

Both are a big drop in weight from the stock wheels, which deeply appeals to me as the person who usually hurks them on and off to mess with brakes, swap around, blah blah, the usual. Also (of course), because race car. (Yes, I know it's not a race car. That doesn't mean I'm not still thinking about unsprung weight. Hey, it's my buyout money here.)

Looking at my car, though, it looks like more offset would stick out in a way that's really not what I want. The 46mm-offset, 7"-wide stock wheels tuck nicely in there and look good.

tl;dr: please explain aftermarket wheels to me, a complete novice about such things. Thx.
 
Hmm. I got distracted, so here I am looking up tire sizes for the kinds of whee-tires I tend to run on the Lancer.

I can't find one that goes with a fatter sidewall than 45 on a 17-inch tire. Grumble. 45 is what I have now on my dumb 18s! So, I guess moving down a tire size won't actually do anything, and I'm better off finding an 18x7 replacement to use with my existing 215/45/18 tires. This would also save me some money, so I'm okay with it, but I am also certain that Austin's garbage roads will find a way to kill another rim on principle.

But then I'd probably want to reuse those 215-width tires, so can I get away with those on a 7.5" wheel, or nah? Most of the ones I like a 7.5" minimum in an 18" wheel. Grr.
 
Last edited:
It is not uncommon to have to buy new lug nuts with aftermarket wheels.

Would a 17" wheel clear your existing brake system? That's always a concern when going down wheel sizes.

I would dump the weird 215/45R18 size, I suspect that size is going to be harder to find in future. 235 width is significantly easier to find. Keep in mind that as the width of the tire goes up, the 'sidewall profile" number goes *down* for a given sidewall height.
 
I often run 225/45R18 on the stock 18x7s for that same reason of availability. If I go up to an 18x7.5 wheel, though, will I need to buy a wider tire or will the 215/45R18s still fit until they die?
 
Also, if you hit hard enough to bend a wheel you probably actually screwed the tires. Expect a blister to develop there followed by a blowout if you continue to use them.

Just looked at TireRack - they seem to indicate you *can* fit 17x8 wheels just fine. Here's a tire height calculator so you can figure out how tall a tire is: http://www.sccoa.com/faq/tirecalc.html

Your stock 215/45R18 is 25.62 inches tall and would be a nominal 8.46 inches wide. An 8 inch wheel isn't going to be an issue with even the stock tire size. If you were to go with a 225/50R17 (which is a *very* popular size) you would have a 25.86 inch tall tire (.2 of an inch isn't really that big a deal, so you'd have a nominally 1.2" taller sidewall with the 17s) and it would be 8.86 inches wide. That results in about a 1% speedometer error, at 100mph indicated (assuming your speedometer wasn't optimistic as most are) you'd actually be doing 100.94mph.
 
ninjacoco;n3552962 said:
I often run 225/45R18 on the stock 18x7s for that same reason of availability. If I go up to an 18x7.5 wheel, though, will I need to buy a wider tire or will the 215/45R18s still fit until they die?
Click to expand...

See above post. If you go to 18x7.5, you can stick 215s on them safely but you should *not*. Given Austin's roads, putting 18" wheels back on the car with those thin sidewalls is going to get you right back here with bent wheels and damaged tires in short order. You *need* more sidewall; those low profile sidewalls can look cool but they're not practical in our motoring environment,

Stock sidewall height for your car: 3.81''
Sidewall height with 225/50R17: 4.43''

That's going to make a significant difference in wheel damage rates.
 
How bad are Austin roads? I have yet to do any damage to the Mustang with it's heavy weight and the big ass 19s on it and Brooklyn is more off roading than driving. Then again it's pretty well lit in general so it's hard to miss road hazards.
 
Our track wheels for the GT3 are the Alleggereta HLTs in 18". They've been really solid and a hell of deal for what you get and what they cost. My understanding is that in production they just cycle through the various colors over time, so availability of the different colors is completely time dependent. I just bought black because I was too impatient to wait for orange to roll back around in the rotation.
 
prizrak said:
How bad are Austin roads? I have yet to do any damage to the Mustang with it's heavy weight and the big ass 19s on it and Brooklyn is more off roading than driving. Then again it's pretty well lit in general so it's hard to miss road hazards.
Click to expand...

I was just over in Fort Worth picking up 4Runner parts and there’s some potholes there that I could actually drive the 4R into and scrape the control arm on that side if I wanted to.

Austin is like that only worse and some parts of Houston are worse still.
 
ninjacoco;n3552962 said:
I often run 225/45R18 on the stock 18x7s for that same reason of availability. If I go up to an 18x7.5 wheel, though, will I need to buy a wider tire or will the 215/45R18s still fit until they die?
Click to expand...

According to this table, a 7J wheel's maximum is 225, while being ideal for 7.5J. You don't have to change at all.
 
Spectre;n3552973 said:
I was just over in Fort Worth picking up 4Runner parts and there’s some potholes there that I could actually drive the 4R into and scrape the control arm on that side if I wanted to.

Austin is like that only worse and some parts of Houston are worse still.
Click to expand...
How in the hell does it get so bad? I can understand North East with all of its traffic and freeze thaw cycle but in a relatively stable climate of TX and comparatively less traffic (I get that there is a ton of traffic there as well but the population numbers and density are significantly lower) I would expect better roads. NYC roads are just generally uneven, potholes are only really bad during and immediately after winter.
 
prizrak;n3552982 said:
How in the hell does it get so bad? I can understand North East with all of its traffic and freeze thaw cycle but in a relatively stable climate of TX and comparatively less traffic (I get that there is a ton of traffic there as well but the population numbers and density are significantly lower) I would expect better roads. NYC roads are just generally uneven, potholes are only really bad during and immediately after winter.
Click to expand...

Texas has also notoriously not increased any gas taxes which help pay for roads since 1991 because "taxes are evil" and people are apparently happier voluntarily driving on toll roads and then complaining about that. On the plus side, the toll roads are nearly non-policed speed-wise and are in generally great condition.
 
Last edited:
i don't have a problem with toll roads, they should introduce those here as well!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top