Custom Wheels and tires

[pteezer129]

The Boyd's are real nice and I haven't seen them on a Cruiser. I think I'm going with the 18's, I like what chromenut has got but thats still too much sidewall showing for me. He is right about the ride of the car though, but I don't think that will be much of a problem. Anyone know what are some real good suspension lowering kits? (bang for the buck)

[Chromenut]

Originally Posted by pteezer129

The Boyd's are real nice and I haven't seen them on a Cruiser. I think I'm going with the 18's, I like what chromenut has got but thats still too much sidewall showing for me. He is right about the ride of the car though, but I don't think that will be much of a problem. Anyone know what are some real good suspension lowering kits? (bang for the buck)

I just went through this whole exercise of researching the combination that would be best for me. A lot of it depends on your PT and what model you have. The Verts have some beefed up components, the GT's have some beefed up components. For instance, I probably will not change out my front sway because it's plenty beefy, but will add one to the rear. On the lowering front, you have to be aware that your wheels/tires play a part in this. You either fit your kit to your wheels/tires or your wheels/tires fit to your kit.

For the most bang for the buck, the Eibachs, in my humble opinion, are probably the most bang for the buck, and you can get the entire kit to include front and rear sways.

For me, I wanted a slightly taller tire on a wider wheel, then I didn't want to level out my ride like many kits do, I wanted to retain the nose down stance that it had from the factory. I also didn't want as much of a drop as some have. Last, I wanted to stay close to the comfort level I had before lowering. No matter what you do, you will NOT have the same ride, period. So it's all up to you on what you want.

I did the Tokico Blues (~$250) and the German made H&R Sport Springs (~$225), that gave me a 1.5" drop in the front, 1.3" drop in the rear. The paperwork says 1.4/1.2, and it may be the way I measured it, but I tried to be as accurate as possible. Also remember that over time the ride lowers as you settle on your new springs. I felt that my ride was perfect with this setup - retained the stance and kept some of the comfort. Wander over to PTCrew.com, there's an entire section devoted to this conversation, and that's where I got most of my information.

[Candyman]

Hey their pteezer129,

Well, their are actually a few factors you need to kick around a bit to help firue out what you are looking for. Keep in mind like Chromenut said above, basically, the lower you drop your ride, the more bumpy it will be. This is due to tightening the suspension, and decreasing suspension travel. The only way to overide this is to go with air ride so you can adjust the air bags up for a smooth ride, and then slam it at a shoe, and so on, but unfortunately the cost difference between springs, and air ride is huge.

With that said,, what year is your PT, and what are you looking to do with it? Most people just want to lower their PT slightly to give it little more aggressive stance to it, corner a little better, and close in the stock wheel gap a little bit, but without losing the majority of their ride quality.

I went a different route, wanting to see how low I could get mine. Unlike Chromenut, I really hated the wheel gap on mine, and wanted to level, and drop my ride to sit perfectly level with the tires. I didn't have money to go Air Ride so I opted to go with Springs, and after doing some homework, I went and bought the Goldline Super Slammer Kit which is pretty much the lowest kit you can buy at a 2.75" / 3.25" drop which was supposed to level the car, and get rid if all of the wheel gap. Well, after I got them on, the car still had a 2" rake making the back still sit quite a bit higher than the front. Since I was not a happy customer at that point, I decided to go talk to a close friend of mine who used to CAD design, engineer, and build Suspension for Off Road Racing Unlimited Class 1 Trophy Trucks, and still has access to all the cool machinery he used to use when he built the race trucks like a Coiler, CNC Machine, and so on. After spending much time going over the numbers, tweaking, and adjustments, we went and custom rolled a one off set of Prototype Springs which were peaked, calibrated, and balanced, and leveled my PT at a full 3"/5" drop which let the body sit at a level 4" at all four corners, and 3 1/2 under the front, and rear lowest most points of the body, and as far as we know, is still to this day 1/4" lower in front, and a full 2" in back than any other kit on the market. We were going to start making some for people wanting to slam and level out their PT, but since we still have to do them one set at a time, they are completely custom, and when you factor in material, labor, and everything involved, we couldn't compete against larger manufacturing operations. We are just a little too expensive as the average cost of Springs range from $220.00 to $270.00, and when its all said and done ours were costing $350 plus Powder Coating, so we made four sets of them and called it a day for those custom spring sets at least for now. One lucky Member on this Forum actually just bought the last set here a couple weeks ago. (see the pic at the bottom to see my ride from stock, to Goldline Super Slammers to my Custom Springs to give you a better idea of where the car sits on each set of springs.)

Anyways, getting back on track, what do you want ro do to your PT? If you want to just lower your ride slightly you can pick up a basic set H&R Sport Springs which will give you a 1.4" drop up front, and a 1.3 i out back for around $210.00, or a set of Eibach Pro Kit Springs which will lower your ride approximately 1 1/2" in front, and 2" out back for around $230.00, or if you look around, you can find Goldline Slammers which will give you the same 1/1/2" in front and 2" out back as the Eibachs, and usually run somewhere within the same $200.00 - $230.00 cost range as well.

Then, if you wanted to go lower, you got the Goldline "Super" Slammers with 2 3/4" drop in front and 3 1/4" which I have seen for around $230.00 to $250.00, or what has been unofficially dubbed my Kandy-Slammers Drop Kit which as mentioned will give you a full 3" drop up front and 5" out back, and will run you $350.00 plus Powder Coat in any color you want, or Chrome,

Their are also a few other mild drop kits floating around out their, but Eibach, and Goldline seem to be really the two that the majority of PT Owners like to stick with.

From their, you can really get into more expensive Mid Grade Kits from EIbach which has the Sway Bars for around $442.00, or H&R Touring Kit for $568.00, or the high end coil over kits like the Bilstien Kit at $1078.00, H&R Street Pref Kit at $1155.00, or Eibach Pro Street S Kit at $1122.00

Please note that all the Spring Kits I have talked about above are basic Spring Kits, and not the package Kits that come with Sway Bars, and so on. You should also note that most all Springs will settle after a month or two giving you your final ride height which will usually be just slightly under what is listed. And as previously mentioned, the more you lower your ride, the worse your ride quality will be. Same goes for your Tire/Wheel Combo. The Bigger the Wheel, the Shorter the Tire sidewall, the worse the ride.

And then you have Air Ride which is fully adjustable from 1" higher than stock, to around 3 1/2" on all four corners, and 2" under the front and back, and can be adjusted to improve ride quality, get over speed bumps, and driveways, and provide clearance to get up onto a trailer. An Air Ride Kit will run you around $2800.00 - $3000.00 in parts plus install.

All of the Kits including mine will fit up to a 19" wheel in front, and a 20" wheel in back without any modification, any or clearance issues provided you have a compatible wheel as far as lug pattern, width, and offset.
Here is that pic for you of a chart I made after I first did my first set of Custom Springs which shows my Ride stock, on Goldline Super Slammers which is the lowest kit available and supposed to level the car, and then my springs which do level the car.



Anyways, that ought to give you a good idea of whats out their. Now its up to you where you go from their. I wish you the very best of luck on your project, and please be sure to post what you decide to go with, and maybe a few cool pics of your ride!

Go easy, and I'll catch ya later.

Candyman

[Chromenut]

/\ What he said...lol /\

[Candyman]

Hahahaha! This is what a bad case of insomnia does to a guy! LOL

[Chromenut]

CMAN, your sig picture is one of the best I've seen. Very cool, and really gets the point across! So did you paint your PT yourself?

Oops, thread jack! lol

[pteezer129]

Getting back on point. Will a 225/40ZR18, width-wise fit on the PT without any rubbing?

[Candyman]

Hey their Chromenut,

Thank you much for the props on my sig! Kinda my halfway attempt at chopping stuff together without really knowing what I was doing, or how to do it.

And yep, I did all the paint and body on my ride with the exception of having a friend of mine Roger shoot a drop shadow throughout the flames with his air brush, and do the hand pin striping for me. Otherwise I shot the Mitsubishi Silver Base, 4 coats of House of Kolor Candy Tangerine Pearl, then layed out the flames completely by hand, and shot them with House of Kolor Basic Black, streaked both Ice Pearl, and Micro Flake using Copper, Gold, Silver, and Gunmetal gray which flows through the design. Then had my friend Roger come in and drop shadow the whole layout in deep maroon, and come back with a hand pin stripe transitioning from red in front, to orange as you make your way through the layout. Here is a pick to kinda show you the colors, but its hard to get a feel for them without seeing them inperson.



In addition to paint, you already know, I have a friend who likes to do suspension, and other custom metal fabrication. In addition, I do a lot of my own Audio/Video, and occasionally some custom Fiberglass work as well.

Here is another project I did out of a 74 Superbeetle which I designed from scratch, did all the body, and then paint, and my budySteve who is my suspention guru did all the mechanics.







That's some of my best work to me. Anyways, sorry their pteezer129 for jacking your thread for a sec. If ya got any more questions, please let me know, and I would be more than happy to try to answer them as best I can.

Go easy,

Candyman

[pteezer129]

Its cool man. Those are some sick rides though. I have to get some pics of my car up there. Anyway I just wanted to know if I was going to have any rubbing or problems with a 225/40ZR18. I found some sick lookin' helo wheels that are direct fit for the PT. The tire combo is either a 215 or the 225, I prefer the 225 because the tire combo gives me less revs per mile @ 60 which is less on the engine and I don't have to alter the speedo for tire size.

[Candyman]

Hey their pteezer129,

Thank you much for your props on my projects! As always, positive feedback is very important to me, and big time appreciated for sure!

Now, are you going to stay at stock height, or look in to dropping it, and how wide of wheel are you going with? At stock height with a comparable wheel to stock, or slightly wider you should have no problem. If you drop it slightly, again should have no problem. If you are looking to slam it, you should still be good, but I would start looking at more specific tire branding if you want to keep to the 225/40R range as some of those size tires have a little meatier tread pattern, and some have a more lower profile performance design, and for example my Springs had as little as a 1/2" gap in front in some places from the tire to the inner fender well, and higher tread could potentially cause issues where lower tread pattern may not.

Above all though, if possible try to have a wheel test fitted to your PT just to confirm you have no problems just to be on the safe side.

Go easy, and let me know if you have any more questions, or what you decide on your project.

Candyman