Post your st165 wheel choices

[scandinavian link]

Since most of these old gallery threads are missing links to photobucket & such, post up your st165 and your aftermarket wheels.

I haven't quite decided what route to go. I snoozed too long (I was waiting for the seller to weigh them for me...shouldn't have bothered...they are forged 15" wheels!) on a set of 15" Tom's 080T wheels that were on eBay and now I'm kicking myself. OZ wheels are hard to track down in 15" for a decent price. There's a set not far from me...but they're 15x8" and wheel offset calculator says they'd extend 44mm more than stock. I don't want to rub fenders (or roll them).

I like Sparco Terras, but would have to import to get a decent offset in 15". I have it in my brain that 16" looks too big on the 165, but maybe I'm wrong. I may swap my TE37s over to the 165 and see how I like it. I'll put the 16" JDM Toyota 86 wheels on the '02 in the meantime.

I do still have my OEM 7th gen wheels too...but they need refinished (I did a poor job trying to plastidip them gunmetal and it won't peel off). I had 15" 7th gen GT wheels on my first st165, and I did think they looked good. Just think I'd rather go a different direction this time.

 

[underscore]

If you've got a few sets that'll fit already may as well toss a wheel on and see how you like the size and fitment. I'm a big fan of the 7th gen wheels on the older gens even if the offset isn't the greatest. The set I got had a bad plastidip job as well, after spending ages manually stripping them I learned that WD40 loosens it up really well and then you can mostly spray it off.

 

[scandinavian link]

If you've got a few sets that'll fit already may as well toss a wheel on and see how you like the size and fitment. I'm a big fan of the 7th gen wheels on the older gens even if the offset isn't the greatest. The set I got had a bad plastidip job as well, after spending ages manually stripping them I learned that WD40 loosens it up really well and then you can mostly spray it off.

I don't have any tires on the 7th gen wheels anymore or I'd stick them on - 3 of the wheels don't look terrible, but one I tried an internet "hack" to fix some wrinkling in the plastidip (spoiler: it didn't work well). I'll probably try the TE37's on over the weekend. I doubt I'd keep them on it, but it should give me a better idea if I'd be OK with 16" Sparco Terras (or I guess any other 16s), or if I'd need to pay $$ to ship 15's from Europe/keep looking for other options.

 

[simple]

Opinion #1, 16 inch are not too large ST165 but my Sparcos Terras do rub when driving hard
Opinion #2 Gen 7 wheels are played out and have been for a while
Opinion #3 Compomotive, BBS, and 1552 should be looked at but sized up correctly

 

[scandinavian link]

D’oh. Forgot that the 86 wheels take acorn nuts, and I don’t have a second set.

Guess I’ll have to wait a few days for another set of lug nuts (don’t really want the ones carried locally).

 

[scandinavian link]

Opinion #1, 16 inch are not too large ST165 but my Sparcos Terras do rub when driving hard
Opinion #2 Gen 7 wheels are played out and have been for a while
Opinion #3 Compomotive, BBS, and 1552 should be looked at but sized up correctly

What size tire do you have on the Terras? Are they the 16x7 +35?

I do still think Gen 7 wheels –both the 15s & 16s– are nice looking, especially compared to many OEM wheels. That said, they have been done many times on older Celicas in the past 20+ years. I ran with both the stock wheels for about 14 years on my '00 GTS, so at this point, I do kind of just want something different.

I am also considering doing something a little odd and getting the 14" wheels that came on the '86-87 GT-S. I had the 13" version of the same wheel on my first car ('86 ST), so it would be a nod back to that for me. But 14" tire selection sucks. Too bad we can't get the Yokohama Advan HF Type-D in the US, or I'd just go full retro.

 

[simple]

16x7 +35 yes from Tire Rack

looks like some 38 and 45mm offset are available from MSW and Enkei on Tire Rack

 

[scandinavian link]

I do like the look of the MSW 85, in some angles anyway. There's also a set of Enkei that I was looking at, don't remember the model name.

The new set of lug nuts came yesterday so I swapped the TE37s over last night. They are 16x7 +33, so they should be a pretty close representation to how the Sparco Terras would fit. Haven't had a chance to pull it out of the garage yet, so I couldn't get a good picture, but here's one of the rear. Tires are 205/50-16. Looks like they poke out in the picture, but they don't really.


And a pic of the JDM 86 wheels on the '02, though it isn't really relevant. They're 16x6.5" +48 offset. 25mm rear spacers (with studs of course), and 10mm spacers up front (extended studs). I like how they look, but they just feel a bit "squishy" – I assume due to the big sidewall of the 225 tires. I don't love the idea of using spacers (they came on the car when I bought it), but I may stay this way for awhile. We'll see. It did get a quick bath this morning...pretty dirty in the pic!

 

[simple]

Both those cars look sorted. I don't love wheel spacers but if they have been on for a long time and torqued up well I'd forget about it.

 

[scandinavian link]

Well, they were on when I bought it. I removed them a couple years ago when I was trying to diagnose some twitchiness in the suspension over bumps (turned out one of my KYB AG-X rears had adjusted on its own to full stiff (4) and the other side was still on (2). I only put them back on to fix the offset issue with the 86 wheels, didn't need them with the Volks.

I do want to take the rear wheels back off to re-torque the spacers though, just in case they loosened at all after driving.

It will be interesting to see how the st165 feels with the lighter, larger wheels. I'm guessing a bit harsher. Not sure if the lightness will make much difference on such a heavy car, but maybe since it is of course unsprung weight, maybe it will be noticeable. They only weigh a bit over 11 lbs each.

 

[scandinavian link]

I switched the wheel sets back. There's something I just don't like about how the Celica feels with the 86 wheels. It may be the extra sidewall on the wide grippy tires, it may be something about the spacers, or it may be something *in my head* about the spacers. But they are off, the TE37s back on, and the OEM st165 wheels back on the st165.

Not really the right place for this I suppose, but oh well.

A few times I've come across this "TECMAG" wheel. I've read it's part of "tecnomagesio" brand (not that I know that brand very well either but a little more info exists), but possibly made in Japan rather than Italy? Not much documentation out there. I believe the model is 206R, kind of reminiscent of Speedlines, which it seems tecnomagnesio was affiliated with at one point. There's a used set of 15x6" +30 in 5x100 that would be a hair under $500 shipped from Japan. I do like the "T" logo on them. Kind of reminds me of 80's Toyota T logos.

Any issue pushing the wheels out 9mm? I'd imagine we have at least that much gap to close up since Celica wheels tend to be inset a bit. I mean...people use 10mm wheel spacers without issue, right? This basically does the same, but without worrying about needing extended studs, right?

 

[scandinavian link]

A kinda crappy photoshop. There wasn't a good head on picture of the wheel, so it's a bit distorted, but I guess it's the general idea of how they'd look.