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JH Wheel upgrade  Rating:  Rating
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 Posted: 04-25-2005 10:58 am
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drtrite
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This may be plowed ground, but I want to change to  14"-15" wheels for better tire selections. Can anyone give me details on what they have done.

Thanks

Don Lenschow

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 Posted: 04-25-2005 07:35 pm
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JASPER
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15" Panasports from Delta @ $200 each

Yokohama AVS tires 225x15x50 from http://www.tirerack.com @$80 each

Fabulous handling and traction aided by new KYB shocks, stiffer springs, New poly bushings all around and front and rear sway bars added.

Regards James and Jasper ! #18149

Attachment: Jasper cover small.jpg (Downloaded 762 times)

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 Posted: 04-25-2005 10:37 pm
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Dave
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Too bad there isn't a supply of used Panasports, $800 + tires and my wife would go nuts!:)

Dave

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 Posted: 04-25-2005 11:54 pm
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Jerry Anderson
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Don, I am going to 14" wheels. The tire selection is better. With the 185/70/14 tire the speedometer does not need to be recalibrated, only about 1.5% slow at 60mph indicated.

Jerry

 

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 Posted: 04-26-2005 06:24 am
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SportsRodder
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If you want wheels other than Panasport it is possible to have made wide 1" wheel adapters 4x4" to 4x100mm.  This will allow many more possibilities in wheel size and tires.

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 Posted: 04-26-2005 03:06 pm
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SportsRodder
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Don,  the  Jensen   wheel pattern is 4x4"  and 4x100mm wheels can be made to fit as the pattern is close.   I  don't believe close is good enough.  Many current cars use the 4x100mm pattern so there are many aftermarket wheels available from 15" dia.  and larger.     If you make your own adapters a 1" wider offset will not put the tires outside the fender line.  The 4x100mm pattern should be offset 90 deg. from the 4x4" pattern.  If you want even more choices  offset the 4x100mm pattern 30 deg. and offset a 4x4 1/2" another 30 deg.  Be sure to get after market wheels with the correct backspace for your application.

Pat

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 Posted: 04-26-2005 08:49 pm
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Dan Collier
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Here's a wheel I've never seen on a JH before. I can't make out the brand of wheel. Wheel pictured in JHPPG gallery.



Dan Collier
JH74 14381 2.2L
Jensen-Healey Preservation Photo Gallery

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 Posted: 04-27-2005 07:54 pm
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Ron Earp
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There are some 13" tires available that will work well, they are just race compound tires from Hoosier and Toyo. They are DOT approved though, and believe it or not will do fine in rain, as long as it isn't puddles of rain. 

Appalachian  Tire, http://www.racetire.com/, can actually squeeze a 225-50-13 inch tire onto a 6" wide wheel rim, no mean feat. The only company and group that can do this. I'll get some pictures up of this before long, that is a big tire for a car this small and on the 13" wheels looks fantastic when compared to 15" wheels.

205-50-13 Toyo race tires will fit on the stock wheel width with no problems whatsoever and will provide more grip that you can use on the street or track unless you modify your suspension fairly extensively.

Ron

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 Posted: 04-27-2005 11:32 pm
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Ricardo
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Or we can plead with Greg and he can have some wheel adaptors (like the ones used with the big brakes) in say.....4x100 and we can mount an endless variety of rims and tires in sizes up to 16"  At least thats what I plan to do.

    Rick

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 Posted: 04-30-2005 09:34 am
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mike92782
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I have had four 15" Panasport wheels on order from Delta since late November, 2004.  I understand that the wheels are still to be manufactured in Japan and then there is the four week voyage across the Pacific.  Be forewarned: if you want 15" Panasports be prepared for 1/2 year - 1 year backorder!

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 Posted: 08-26-2005 08:17 am
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Harkes
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...is Jasper running 225x7x15 ?? I thought they were 205's . Don't the 225 give clearance problems for the fronts? are they not tremendeously heavy to steer?

I'm still to make up my mind for my wheels and tires, but i was thinking 205 for the fronts and 215 or 225 for the rears. Then someone told me i'd better run equal sizes on all four as the JH is almost perfectly balanced 50/50.

jasper's panasport wheels do look stunning!

Happy cruising

erik

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 Posted: 06-30-2007 07:48 pm
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timeforwalkies
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Hello Ron.
Seems you are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to running a JH on the track.
It looks from your photos like you are running something different than stock, probably steel.  Where do such wheels come from?  I am considering a second set so that I migth go out to a track day once in a while at Infinion.
I was also looking at tires and up popped the Toyo RA-1 in a 205-60 VR13.  This would seem to be the tire of choice for the track, but is it a resonable tire for the street.  I am probably not going to go more than 2 or 3 thousand miles a year so this seemed like an OK idea.  Yep they are expensive, but with the full 2.2 upgrade it seems like small change.  Just 5 hous of shop time.
Thanks,
Clif

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 Posted: 06-30-2007 09:35 pm
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Tony Hollart
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I have watched this debate on available wheels also. There seems two ways to go to me.

1) Have the front and rear hubs drilled at a 4 x 100 mm PCD and fit larger diameter wheel studs. 4 inch = 101.6mm, the 0.4mm would be taken up by going from the 8mm studs to 10mm diameter studs. Would have to be done on a proper milling machine or other precision machine. Downside is no going back when done.

Front wheel drive cars have larger offset than rear wheel drive cars generally. The one car that had good looking wheels and was rear wheel drive was the BMW 3 series from the 1980's ( bottle cap mag ). I have not finished my home work on these yet to see if they are suitable, usually they are 14 inch.

2) Wheel adapters. This solves two problems in one go. You get a spacer to allow you to use standard front wheel drive wheels in a multitude of sizes and offsets and allows the original hubs and studs to stay standard so you can go back to stock if you want.

I am still quite impressed with the JH original wheels as they look smart, are light and seem to run quite true, downside is the wheel nuts ( Alloy wheel nuts are much less forgiving than steel ) and tyre selection as mentioned above.




Attachment: wheel adapters2.jpg (Downloaded 63 times)

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 Posted: 07-01-2007 01:03 am
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timeforwalkies
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Good stuff Tony.
I like the idea of spacers/adapters.  Does anybody know anything about bearing loads caused by the increased width?
The stock wheels have an offset of about 1 inch so that would mean a 2 inch offset in any new wheels or close to maintain the same footprint.
I don't know if the engineers were real concerned about offsets and bearing loads, but I would assume they were.  This may increase the bearing loads considerable.  On the other hand, the loads are pretty light considering the JH weight, about 550 lbs per wheel. 
Another good reason to find out where the rotors and rear axel came from.
I agree about the JH wheels.  Pretty nice.  I am going to have mine powder blasted and then who knows what.  Any ideas?
Thanks

Last edited on 07-01-2007 01:12 am by timeforwalkies

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 Posted: 07-01-2007 11:10 am
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Ron Earp
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Clif,

I have a set of Panasports on the Jensen. If you use some Toyo Proxie RA1s (non shaved, we shave them for racing) they will work wonderfully on the street and give you awesome grip. More so than any other tire that has been discussed here.

I know there is a Panasport knock off wheel called The Rewind that a lot of racers are using. You can find them on Ebay often and they just might make them in the correct pattern. I've not looked, but it might be worth your time.

And, if you get the right tire guy you can put a 225-50-13 Toyo or Hoosier on the stock JH wheel and it looks really wicked. It is safe, but you'll need a good tire guy or a race tire guy that is used to doing such stuff.  It is extremely hard to put that tire on, or off, the stock wheel width but it can be done.

Ron

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 Posted: 07-01-2007 01:09 pm
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Judson Manning
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Clif,

The Delta-supplied street legal Panasports Ron is running actually weigh a good bit more than the stock (magnesium alloy) JH wheels.  Ron's wheels were on my car when I was running BFG R1s 205/60R13s many years ago.  The re-occuring problem I always had with an open diff was rear grip.  That inside tire would unload and I'd always go into a spin.

Fast-forward to this year and my experiment with JH wheels and a set of 20-8x13 Hoosier racing slicks.  These cantilevered tires are designed for Production cars running 5.5" (i.e. stock JH) wheels.  These things stuck like glue even with an open diff and the 907/910 hybrid pushing them through the W58.  Power and grip were not a problem, but what I quickly found was the limitations of my braking system!

Much like my braking example, the bearing loads are a problem.  Our bearings are the same as a small trailer and will not withstand the constant pounding of 8" slicks or 225 R-compound tires.  Pushing the tire outboard makes the situation worse.  Ron is resigned to the fact that much like the Neon guys, he'll be changing bearings every couple of races.

The other issue is front end scrub-radius.  Once you start pushing the tire outboard with spacers, steering effort increases along with understeer.  There is always a balance between getting more grip with fatter rubber and losing grip due to less efficient geometry.  The rules allow me to solve this problem on my Production car, but it's not an option for a street JH.

Assuming your rules won't allow a set of slicks, I'd get a set of 15x6 Panasports off the shelf at Delta.  Along the lines of what Ron has done, slap a set of 225s out back and 205s up front.  That will give you a good balance of grip without having to worry too much about bearing or steering failure.

Judson

Attachment: DSCF1782a.jpg (Downloaded 121 times)

Last edited on 07-01-2007 01:09 pm by Judson Manning

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