I came home today to find 2 nice big surprises! 2 huge watanabe boxes with my nice shiny new wheels in them!!

I ordered a set of 16x8 (0 offset) and a set of 16x8.5(-6 offset) Watanabe R wheels. The wheels were ordered as magnesium coloured with machined silver rims

Unfortunately when i pulled them out of the box (man are they LIGHT!) they are all magnesium (so no silver finish). Not sure what is going to happen yet, i have emailed the guy who ordered them for me to see what the best course of action is

anybody know somebody in sydney who would be able to machine the rims and polish them up? i have no idea what it would cost to do, but it may be an option to fix them rather than send them back to japan and wait a month for them to finish the wheels at the factory, but ultimately it will be up to the company i bought them off.

I didn't have my camera with me today, but i will get a photo tomorrow of them and post it!

I had been waiting to see the wheels before trying to decide between painting the car red or grey... let me tell you it still hasn't helped!

Kent

Originally posted by: khughes

oh well.. i guess i am going to have to be extra paranoid about them!

You would still have the option to have them powdercoated with a durable clear finish.

Just have to open up that wallet a little more.

watanabes scratch real easy, so i doubt they're powdercoated. which is good for you because it'd be a real job to remove that powdercoating to polish

i've seen a few sets of f8's that were all black or gunmetal, but the paint scratches showed a machined/clear coated lip underneath

If the machined/clear coated lup showed under the scraqtches, then whoever painted them didn't prep them correctly. Sounds like the owner had the finish what Kent wants - painted inside and machined lip, and had them painted over to all black without proper prep work.

Don't worry too much about scratches, Kent, there are other, more important things to worry about like vandals, thieves and curb rash . . . .

Just kidding!

Thanks can't wait!!!

I got my wheels back on wednesday, and only managed to get a photo of them today, they look so much better now!! the one photo'd is the 16x8.5" enjoy!

hopefully tomorrow i should get my hands on a used set of road legal semi slicks too... they will probably be a little too thin for use as proper tyres, but they will do for now (just for fitting, brake sizing etc..)

Nice wheels how much did they cost with the paint?

were they painted? or is it just the lighting conditions (camera settings) make them look pretty different? either way they look dam nice, and the polished lip sets them off nicely, it'd take me forever to choose which colour to get them in!

today i had to take my car to SWR for it's big brakes to be fitted (among other things), so finally i managed to get some rubber on the rims and stick them on the car!

i know some of you have been waiting on pics, so here they are!

it looks like they will fit very very well with the flares..

Gee, Kent, you could have at least gotten some good rubber for those nice Watanabes . . . .

Wheels look awesome Kent

today i had to take my car to SWR for it's big brakes to be fitted (among other things), so finally i managed to get some rubber on the rims and stick them on the car!

i know some of you have been waiting on pics, so here they are!

it looks like they will fit very very well with the flares..

I didn't know rubber bands came in that size and blackROFL !

Will

i know i know... when i rang the tyre place, they wouldn't touch the wheels because of the size and because the car needs to be engineered (they just told me to speak to my engineer, which i don't have yet). So i just bought the cheapest 16" wheels i could find ($50 a pop), just to get the car rolling, so the brakes will fit.

the tyres were 205/45 and 205/60... and man were they a stretch on the 8"/8.5" rims

Kent,

Those look perfect. I don't think any other wheel belongs on a C110. The attitude of the car is completely changed once Wats are installed. It goes from "ho-hum" to "damn that thing looks pissed off". I do have a question though. When you modify the rear wheel arch, do you need to rework the inner fender or is the only metal that is cut on the outside of the car? Regardless of the work needed, these are the wheels I am going to use as well. And speaking of my car, she looks a bit lonely sitting on that trailer in the background.

Brian

haha, yeah, i was going to point your car out in the photo's she has been sitting on that trailer for the past 2 months, but she fired up first time!

I had my uncle over at the time and he decided to go crazy cutting out the arches for me.. i think he may of gone a little overboard.. but yes, you need to cut both the inner and outer skins, and somehow rejoin them (as i would assume the body would get some flex here)

they are VERY sexy wheels! everybody who has seen them have commented so far! i certianly wouldn't use any other wheel!

after trouble getting a 2nd DR30 rear caliper, i have given up on using the DR30 rears instead i am going with the SWR rear VT commodore brake kit. A bit of a shame after spending $600 getting most of the bits, only to find that 2 of the 3 calipers i had, were stuffed and unrepairable (stupid roller bearings built into the caliper body for the operation of the hand brake assembly were seized).

But on a good note, i am getting my 1/2 roll cage installed, along with the driveshaft, rear Z31 CV shafts and front R34 brakes installed.. then after doing the fuel system, and wiring, she may almost be ready to fire up!! i can't wait!