They see me Rollin' pt.2

Much to my enjoyment my summer wheels/tires arrived on Monday afternoon.


And in a feat that was completely out of character, I woke up at around 5:30am Tuesday morning to put them on... only to realize that the sun wasn't even going to be up for another hour and a half. So after watching half of the latest episode of Top Gear, it was finally sunny enough to get to work. And by 7:15am I was owner of the most pimp'ed Yaris in town (now there's something to be proud of).




As you can tell by the pictures it was still pretty cold (around 27F) when I put the tires on.

For fun I also weighted one before I put it on...



And was pleasantly surprised to find it was actually about 2 pounds lighter than I even expected (about 28.5Lb. according to a shitty bathroom scale).

Initial impressions: Since the tires will need about 500 miles of "nice" driving before I can really test them out I can't really comment on how they accelerate or corner (though it's obviously far better than the factory tires or the winter tires.) One thing I noticed right away is that they are one of the loudest tires I've ever had (which considering they're an ultra performance summer only tire isn't a surprise). It's not annoying, simply turning the radio up a few clicks drowns them out almost entirely, but they do make a constant "hum" on every road surface I drove on. Also as a very soft compound tire they have a tendency to grab little rocks and things off of the road surface and throw them into the wheel wells. On the plus side they are very smooth, I actually caught myself speeding quite a few times on the way to work since it never feels like your going that fast.

I'll more than likely make another (probably far shorter) post in a few weeks when I've got them broken in and can give some of my thought on how they react when pushed a little harder.

They see me rollin'

Well it's been fricken forever since I made a new post, in all honesty I haven't been doing anything worth talking about, just a lot of work. However, over the last few weeks the weather has been slowly making its way from balls freezing cold to at least mild temps. So it's quickly becoming "car season" again, and hopefully this year I can keep my ass peeled away from the anime and video games long enough to get some real work done on the 240, and the Yaris.

Speaking of the Yaris, I just ordered a new wheel/tire setup for summer (the factory steelies are officially winter wheels, using the old snow tires I had on the 240).

These are the wheels (well not the actual wheels, this is a stock photo, but you get the idea). They're Enkei RPF1's, I ordered them in 15's, since it's a small car and I don't want it to look like more of a retarded roller skate than it already does. The other reason is the 15's are an "I came buckets" inducing 9.5 pounds each. Combined with the tires (that are about 20 pounds), which I'll get to in a second, the whole package should end up right around 30 pounds which is about as light as I've ever seen for a wheel/tire package, short of "shaved" tires and carbon fiber composite wheels. Which should hopefully give some nice benefits like better acceleration and braking (with 85HP it needs any help it can get), which should make "spirted" drives a little more fun, and safe (since nothing is less fun than driving like a tool, then having to get a ride home after you "make friends" with a big ass tree).

  I decided to go with a pretty ass kicking set of summer tires, and after reading a bunch of articles, tests, and reviews I settled on these. They're Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec's (195/55/15), and besides having one of the longest names ever given to a tire, they're supposed to be one of the best "extreme performance" summer tires money can buy, but at $89/ea. they're also dirt cheap compared to the Goodyear's and Pirelli's of similar class. 

Other plans for the Yaris are a new set of springs (more than likely a set of Eibach Pro-lines), and a TRD rear sway bar (which should help the car from getting pushed all over the road in a cross wind, like it does currently). Chances are this will be the extent of modifications I do to the Yaris, since, it's still just a work car, so I don't want to do too much, and end up with another loud ass car that pounds me to death where ever I drive. 


The wheels/tires should show up early next week, and I should have them on as soon as I get a day off. I'll be sure to take some pictures and shit, and post them here. So now I guess all 3 of you that read my shit have something to look forward to.