New member for a New Year!
 

What better way to start '07 than to join this forum? The info. on this site has already been helpful to me and by Boxster.
I have an '02, seal gery w/ black partial leather "S" that just turned 11,000 miles. I have added 19" RH turbo wheels, Litonic headlights, smoked tail & marker lights, EVO airbox and a short-thow shifter. Future mods may include a 1" drop, sportier exhaust and GT3 seats.

Welcome!

Very nice car. Seal grey is a great color. Not too dark...not too light.

hi
very nice car you got there, those wheels fit it real good.

welcome to the forum, great way to start a new year

Thanks for the welcome. Love the wheels but I really think the car needs to be lowered for it to look just right.

Love the wheels....19's look so good....whats the ride like, is it standard suspension?

After installing the wheels, the ride was much more harsh at speeds over about 45-50 mph. and mainly from the front end. After checking my air pressure , I found my dealer had inflated them to about 40 lbs front and rear. I lowered the pressures to 29front, 36rear and now it feels much like it did on the 17's. I do have the standard suspension and as it sits now it is about an inch higher than a stock Box. It now needs to be lowered an inch for it to look right. I have orderd the H&R spring kit and will have it installed by next week if all goes well.

Car looks awesome - and only 11K in miles on an '02?! :eek: Right on -

Welcome

Welcome. The car looks great!
How (or why) do you think it sits 1" higher than stock?

I realized it after having a stock car parked next to mine, my rear end
(please no obvious jokes here!) looked much higher. I measued the height front and rear after as soon as I returned home. From the ground to the bottom of my wheel wells is 26 1/4" front and 27 1/4" rear. I have not measured a stock car yet but I believe they are around 25" front and rear. BTW, my tires are 235-35-19 and 265-35-19. Has anyone else experienced this?

I haven't measured those distances on mine. The rim+tire diameter of the OEM 19" wheels is about equal (or even a bit smaller) than the diameter of the 18" wheels on the 987. So I think your 19" wheels are not what's making your Box sit higher. Actually, it's not the actual hight that makes your car look high -- it's how little the wheel fills the wheel well (or how much gap there is between the wheel and well). Not recommending this but just for the sake of argument, if you put larger diameter wheels (rim+tire) than stock, I would imagine the car would sit slightly higher than stock but would look like it's actually lower because of the smaller gap between the wheel and the well.

Actually, (and sorry to highjack the thread here) I would welcome some input and experiences with placing larger diameter wheels (rim + tire) on a Box or any car in general. I would imagine there would be some suspension and camber issues, and obviously the speedometer and the odometer would be miscalibrated proportionally to the diameter difference.

Z.

P.S. I agree that the wheel-to-well gap needs to be 1" smaller on your car for it to look right. Same with mine and all US stock Boxsters. European stock Boxsters are lower than the US stock, as mentioned in another thread recently.

This is correct, the car LOOKS lower (if it is not sitting next to a stock car) but it's ride height has increased by about an inch. I did not expect there to be this much of a difference when I purchased this wheel set. Now I am all most forced to do a suspension drop just to get back at the stock ride height, something I would not of had to do If I would have gone with the 18's. :ah:

A not so good pic of the wheels next to each other. Hard to tell in photo but tire/wheel combo is much smaller than the 19" combo.

It's not the 19" rims that's making your wheels larger. It's the tires. Normally, you can put 16, 17, 18, and 20" rims and still keep the wheel diameter close to constant by choosing decreasingly lower profile tires. Just checked and Tirerack suggests 225/35 front and 265/30 rear tires for 19" rims on your Box, to keep the overall wheel diameter same as stock and to avoid issues with suspension, hight, odo, and speedometers. Both the front and rear wheels (rim + tire) of your current setup have larger diameters than stock, thus raising the hight of the car. However, your wheel well is fuller with the new wheels. You actually had done what I was asking about in my previous post (puting larger diameter wheels than stock). Looks like you didn't plan to as you seemed surprised by it. (I assume you know how to derive the total wheel diameter from the 265/35/19 info. If not let me know and I'll show you.)

Z.

Well put, and this I understand. I just had not anticpated how much my overall ride height would be effected. Here is a great link for anyone wanting to do tire size comparisons before purcahsing non-stock tire sizes. www.tyretraders.com/tyrecalc.aspx