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An update on the rubbing, it was coming from the lower control arm, it has a lip that curves down and the forward part of the lip needs to be grinded a couple mm so it doesn't rub when fully turning the steering left or right.
I do not use any spacers. During AutoX, I did get some rubbing when cornering, on bumpy road surfaces. Over time, the fender liner wore, and the rubbing went away. Keep in mind that besides being lowered, I was also running 8" wide, 205/55R14 tires! I am pretty sure that any tires 195 or less should be fine. Tirerack recommends a 175/65-14 tire. Imagine if you were to mount a 13 lb. 175/65-14 Bridgestone Potenza RE92 tire, onto a 9.3 lb Kosei K1 TS rim. Each corner would only weigh 22.3 lbs! A total of 89.2 lbs of unsprung weight!
For Daily driving, I run 9.5 lb. RPF1s, mounted with 15 lb. 195/45R15 Toyo T1Rs. My wheel/tires weigh in at 24.9 lbs. per corner...less than 100 lbs. total weight. Note, as the tires wear, each tire will get lighter. After running my tires just over 60K miles, I found that each of my tires had lost nearly 2 lbs. of rubber!
Originally Posted by devmail
Damn those Toyo Proxes T1R tires are light! The 195/45/14 weigh 15 lbs as well. That gives even better final drive gearing than the 185/55/14. :-)
Awesome read! I needed to tag this for reading later. Planning on getting a 2015 Fit. Rotational mass reduction is HUGE for me.
Do any of you guys know how many 1/10ths of a time you can shave off your 1/4 mile time by going with the Enkei wheels? I know tire sizes/weights vary but I'm looking for info on any 1/4 mile time with these wheels (Or the Kosie K1 TS). Thanks for any info!
Last edited by Myxalplyx; May 14, 2014 at 11:10 PM.
Here are some pics with the 25 mm or 1" spacer from Precision European Motorworks (eBay). Very nice pieces! Also the VX wheels have a new paintjob...removing the dark grey, white, green, red and silver layers of paint beforehand was "fun."
Here is the stance before and after with the 25 mm spacer on each corner:
As you may notice the spacers will save you some grinding which is probably a few hours of work. To get them to fit without spacers was about 16 hours of grinding in total... :-O
Had the T1R S coils installed today. Noticed a tiny bit of rubbing again with full left or right turns, it was the lip of the lower control arm. A few mins of grinding took care of the problem. I am glad I decided to paint the inside of the wheel for this very issue. I will check again in a week just incase the springs settle more.
Thanks, not too many people are keen on VX wheels but I love them. The smaller diameter tire made a nice difference in appearance and gearing, changes it to about a 4.7 final drive.
I originally had HX wheels too but wanted to try the VX. For those I was gonna go with 185/55r14 Yokohama S drives for an increase in overall final drive. That might be something to try in the future with the kosei t1s, which by the way look great!!
Thanks, not too many people are keen on VX wheels but I love them. The smaller diameter tire made a nice difference in appearance and gearing, changes it to about a 4.7 final drive.
I originally had HX wheels too but wanted to try the VX. For those I was gonna go with 185/55r14 Yokohama S drives for an increase in overall final drive. That might be something to try in the future with the kosei t1s, which by the way look great!!
You are still on factory studs right? And 5mm spacers should be fine for the front to clear the caliper?
HX wheels come by here and there VX wheels are rare. I would not mind having 13's man they look nice. We got small cars
HX wheels will fit with a 5 mm spacer or with grinding down the caliper bracket. Stock studs should be ok but I never tried it personally.
VX wheels will not fit without extensive grinding of the caliper face and rear section, even with the 1" spacers. I decided not to use the spacers because they weighed 1.5lbs each and that defeated the purpose of using vx over hx.
HX wheels will fit with a 5 mm spacer or with grinding down the caliper bracket. Stock studs should be ok but I never tried it personally.
VX wheels will not fit without extensive grinding of the caliper face and rear section, even with the 1" spacers. I decided not to use the spacers because they weighed 1.5lbs each and that defeated the purpose of using vx over hx.
Attempted VX install with grinding calipers and now its looking sketch with the bolt holes exposed and the rim is still touching at the spot inward of the bolt. What calipers can I swap without clearance issues with these tiny VXs?
There are no calipers that will fit. These wheels were designed for the 9.5" brakes and calipers of the non-Ex/Si model civics from 88-2000. From what I've read these calipers will not bolt up to the Fit hub plus they are non ABS. I also looked into the 1st gen Insight, they also look like they won't fit. Perhaps either caliper can be made to fit?
What u have pictured is what I did to my brakes as well. Keep grinding and they will fit BUT the caliper pins will eventually seize especially if you do winter driving. It took me 8 hrs of grinding and test fitting for EACH side. Unfortunately it's not worth it for the long term as these will most likely fail a vehicle inspection and there is nothing but crappy all season tires for these, unless you want to run expensive R compounds daily.
Eventually I bought wilwood DPHA calipers which must use 15" wheels. But they are at least 4 lbs lighter than the stock caliper and there are plenty of great options for 15" wheels.
My friend thinks the exposed bolt hole is jeopardizing the bolt/caliper integrity, I question whether he's right if I keep grinding away. You are running on similar calipers without safety issues?
I ran this way for close to a year before I noticed that the pads were wearing unevenly and the caliper pins were starting to seize. I immediately took this as a warning sign and went with the wilwood upgrade. The brakes did function up until that point but I always felt uneasy about it. I at least tried it but honestly it's not worth it. I wish I convinced myself that earlier in and saved 16 hours of tedious work.
Your friend is right. It is affecting the caliper integrity. For safety reasons I would save up for those wilwoods DPHA ($400) and cheap lightweight wheels like the Avanti Racing Storm S1 (10.7 lbs, $129 ea on tire rack)
At this point I'm going to add spacers to these to avoid having to grind more than I need to, any idea what thickness I should go without having to worry about the lug lengths?
I see sets on ebay with increments of 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, 16
5 mm max I think. I believe you need to get 6 full turns of the lugnut on the lug bolt, any less could be problematic, but don't take my word for it, I'm no mechanic.
