Ok, so I have what I think is a fairly conservative setup on my 2000 OBS. SPT springs + AGX struts, 16x7 RS rims and 205/55/16 tires. It is a 1" drop up front and a 1/2" drop in the back compared to stock springs, even less of a drop if I had started at stock RS ride height. The OBS comes stock with 205/60/15 tires. I had no rub at all with the 15 inch tires, but now I'm getting some tire rub in the back passenger side wheel, apparenly on the mud flap. It looks like the car had some body repair in the back at one time in the past, so one possibility is the rear bumper skin isn't sitting quite right. But before I dig into that possibility, I was just wondering if this setup should be ok. I'm trying to decide between going back to stock springs or attempting to adjust the rear bumper skin. For reference, I ran 205/55/16 tires with stock springs on my other wagon for 3 years with no problems. Any advice, ideas, flames? Thanks
Well, I punched the tire sizes into a calculator, and it says they're only 2/10ths of an inch difference in total height. and both being 205's...means the same width. I bet it'd work, but I'll let more experience people chime in....
Well, I took the mudflap off on the passenger side and took a test drive down to the empty firestone lot (c'mon, it's not raining _that_ hard ) and it seems to be good. I don't hear it rubbing anywhere else. I'll have to see what I can do to get that bumper skin moved back a bit on that side if I want to get the mudflap back on.
So how would the mudflap have rubbed against the tire because of lowering it? If it's rubbing now, it would have rubbed with the stock suspension. I can't get a good visual of it, so I could just tell you to keep the mudflap off to prevent more rubbing. As far as I know, a lowered car would only rub the tires against the fenders; nothing else. Since you're using basically the same size tire, there's no worry unless the rear is really off from a rear-end accident from before.
huh? rubbing on the mud flap? well I've had my mudflaps rub the ground, but not of the tire.haha welll.....with this setup right now, it did rub a tiny bit on the driver rear and the rubber fender liner. But it wasn't a biggie. It only rubs when in compression, other than that, it's fine.
i think it should work. i don think the drop should affect it that much. 1/2 inch is nothing. and with stiffer struts and springs it should move even less. but i dont know about that mud flap thing. tell us how it works out and what you decide to do
dont forget that the offsets of your wagon are different from a RS. The RS wheels will stick out farther than your stock ones. that will induce rub on your fender.
^^Lue, OMGHI(red flag)2U. The higher the offset, the more tucked the wheel is inside the wheel well, and the 00 RS wheels are +53 offset (the 02+ RS/WRX wheels are +55 offset). Unless the stock wagon's offset is greater than an RS wheel's offset, there's no need to worry about rubbing at the fender.
Yeah, these wheels do stick out a bit further than the 15s. But so far it hasn't rubbed on the fender, only that mudflap that I had to take off was the problem. I'll try to take some pics showing the difference in clearance on both sides. As far as the offset, these are 16x7 rims, the 15s are what, 6 inches wide? I think offset is measured from the center of the wheel, so the overall width is a factor. Anyway, I might just have to make some custom (and thin) mudflaps and live with it. Thanks for the advice. I feel better now. I thought I had done enough reading on nasioc to know this was a safe setup, then I drove the car for the first time with the new tires on and it rubbed from the start, I felt really dumb for a while there...
