sMARTINside - New Wheels

sMARTINside

New member
This weekend, we got a nice load of snow falling from the skies. This is quite exceptional for this time of year... But my Celica was running pretty good, so I took her a couple time for a little fun ride! At least I still had my winter tires on! At the beggining, my rear sway bar was completely off function (but installed on the car), because I had disconnected one of the end links. I had a unsafe feeling while driving the car. If I pushed the car to oversteer using momentum, and then press gently on the throttle to make it drift, it would drift for an instant, but just when the car would regain grip on all four tires, the front end would start to push, so the car understeered and couldn't follow the direction I intended it to go. I have to say that the snow was pretty much like slush, so it was hard to find grip anyway. So yesterday, I reconnected the Whiteline rear sway and adjusted it to the max. Just by connecting that bar, the car overall feels lighter, steering response is sharper and the rear end wants to keep drifting. I also have a Torsen diff, that helps a lot too. Anyway, I experimented the rear sway bar again. It is a must, in any season!

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sMARTINside

New member
A little progress: The OEM RC bumper is now painted red. I had a bodyshop doing it and I asked him to remove the ugly licence plate holder.

Enjoy!

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sMARTINside

New member
Thanks for the comments guys. It took me forever to decide if I wanted to paint the bumper myself or have it done. I think I made the right decision. The removal of the plate holder has put this project on hold for too long! After 3 years running this RC bumper with it's JDM gray color on my red car, the car looks so different to my eyes... It's weird, it's like I can't believe this is actually my Alltrac, when I look at it... like it had got a facial surgery! :|
 

sMARTINside

New member
Thanks, yes, here in Quebec we are lucky to not run a front licence plate. In my opinion (and many must think like me), no car should run a front licence plate for beauty purposes.
 

sMARTINside

New member
underscore":3g1tzaml said:
Yeah but isn't it illegal to reverse stall park because of it?

Do you mean parking your car with the rear end not visible from the road, avoiding the cops to read your licence plate? There is no such law applied here. I think it's not allowed to park on the side of the road, on the wrong side of the road (with the front end facing the front end of the oncoming cars.
 

sMARTINside

New member
A little update... Just got some new wheels installed for 2014. I found a set of clean JDM 7th gen Celica TRD T3 wheels. The specs are: 17x7.5 +30ET 17lbs forged, made by Rays. I put 225/45R17 Bridgestone RE11A tires on them as my new setup. The rears have a 20mm spacer.

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CMS-GT4

Active member
Nice. I considered those as well. Did you weight them? I thought they were lighter than that. I could had sworn rays listed the 17x8.5 at 16 or so.
 

sMARTINside

New member
Thanks guys, I don't regret the change! To Josh: Yes I had them on a scale and they actually weight 17 lbs. The centerbore is 54.1 and the bolt pattern 5x100, so they fit perfectly on a stock Alltrac.
 
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