wheel dilemma!

rollaholic · Post by **rollaholic** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 4:21 pm

so as some may recall, my household acquired an mx5 some months ago. it had particularly distasteful wheels on it at the time, so they were replaced - perhaps a little rapidly - with some 15" buddyclubs.

i really wanted to find some suitable 14s for it, but struggled to turn up anything of note. seems 14s are not popular with wheel manufacturers anymore, and as a result tyre manufacturers also.

anyway, just the other day i found that its possible to get a brand new set of my ideal 14s for this car from the USA.

the head says no, but the heart says YES!

the cost is not fantastic, once tyres and all are considered. this money could be better spent on other areas of the car, particularly given the limited nature of my budget.

i purchased the car with a view to building something that my wife and i could take to a few track days here and there.

in the longer term i can imagine this would lead to me wanting to get some semi slicks for it.

so my questions are, am i significantly disadvantaging myself for what is an essentially aesthetic choice?

are 14" semi slicks available / how do they compare in cost to 15s?

am i going to end up putting the 15s back on to fit bigger brakes? (the NZH wheels forum seems to be full of guys wanting to upgrade their wheels for bigger brakes)

anything else you can think of?

lubs you TS.

Post by **Mr Revhead** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 4:50 pm

I'd have thought 15s would be a good choice. Am surprised to hear 14s are.hard to get.
Just going to go check the wheel size on the missus mx....

rollaholic · Post by **rollaholic** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:00 pm

there are 14s around, just nothing i like (aka not advantis from 10 years ago)

also a little hard to find lowish offset with 4x100 stud pattern.

most mx5s have 14s fitted as factory, but they are only 5.5 wide or something.

h8wrxs · Post by **h8wrxs** » Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:39 pm

rollaholic wrote: but they are only 5.5 wide or something.

5.5???? really hahaha thats tiny

touge_ae101 · Post by **touge_ae101** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 12:45 am

Nah 15s are where its at. tyres are plentiful and same with semis.
Rp01s look real good on mx5s if you want a good looking wheel. a low offset enkei j speed would look real good too.

as for brakes the standard brakes work awesome. the guys in the mx5 race series just use a cheap c one pad in a standard caliper/rrotor. just remove backing plates for breathing and you'll never run out of brakes.

FST4RD · Post by **FST4RD** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:34 am

Check out the xxr wheels website. There are a couple 15s on there with pics of mx5s. They look super hot with some of those wheels!

Jdawg · Post by **Jdawg** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:28 am

You could also try http://www.mx5mart.co.nz/
He has a whole shed load

rollaholic · Post by **rollaholic** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:52 am

i guess taste in wheels is personal. im reasonably happy with the buddyclubs, and wouldnt consider replacing them with other 15s unless they also came with semis / were too good to pass up etc.

i have had dealings with mr mx5mart previously, and found his attitude to be less than endearing. i ended up buying my replacement engine elsewhere after he failed to answer my questions and after a few emails back and forward he just stopped replying.

shrug.

thanks for your thoughts guys, i think i will stick with the buddyclubs.

rollaholic · Post by **rollaholic** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:54 am

h8wrxs wrote:
rollaholic wrote: but they are only 5.5 wide or something.

5.5???? really hahaha thats tiny

yeah, standard mx5s really do look comical after you spend some time looking at super low cars with super wide wheels on teh internetz.

but it was the early 90s man, 5.5 was the wheel of choice!

FST4RD · Post by **FST4RD** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:20 am

There's a really cool early mx5, silver, almost sitting on the ground with some deep deep dish wheels on it. See it regularly getting round. Would love to see him get over a speed bump!

rollaholic · Post by **rollaholic** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 11:37 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXMyOSHAqd8

Al · Post by Al » Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:58 pm

rollaholic wrote:
h8wrxs wrote:
rollaholic wrote: but they are only 5.5 wide or something.

5.5???? really hahaha thats tiny

yeah, standard mx5s really do look comical after you spend some time looking at super low cars with super wide wheels on teh internetz.

but it was the early 90s man, 5.5 was the wheel of choice!

My '85 Corolla came factory with 14x5.5s

FST4RD · Post by **FST4RD** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:21 pm

Al wrote:
rollaholic wrote:
h8wrxs wrote:
rollaholic wrote: but they are only 5.5 wide or something.

5.5???? really hahaha thats tiny

yeah, standard mx5s really do look comical after you spend some time looking at super low cars with super wide wheels on teh internetz.

but it was the early 90s man, 5.5 was the wheel of choice!

My '85 Corolla came factory with 14x5.5s

My Suzuki Alto came with 12x4s and 135/80/12s :lol:

RomanV · Post by **RomanV** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:07 pm

loooooooooooooool @ this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYj1Ev3xz84

dnalunchie · Post by **dnalunchie** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:04 pm

didnt get the lols?

siren676 · Post by **siren676** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:53 pm

FST4RD wrote:There's a really cool early mx5, silver, almost sitting on the ground with some deep deep dish wheels on it. See it regularly getting round. Would love to see him get over a speed bump!

This one?

Post by **Mr Revhead** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 10:06 pm

RomanV wrote:loooooooooooooool @ this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYj1Ev3xz84

Way to ruin the best feature of the car

FST4RD · Post by **FST4RD** » Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:37 am

siren676 wrote:
FST4RD wrote:There's a really cool early mx5, silver, almost sitting on the ground with some deep deep dish wheels on it. See it regularly getting round. Would love to see him get over a speed bump!

This one?

That's the one! Super cool!

ryanfels · Post by **ryanfels** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:46 am

Im pretty sure most of the big companys still make semis in 14"s

tsoob · Post by **tsoob** » Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:38 am

yes 14's semis are around.. but 15's are def more common and you can get some cheap 15's semis now man....