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Old 05-05-2011, 05:33 PM   #1
SUX2BU
Quit being a pu$$y
 
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Drives: FAST
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Sachse TX (DFW)
Posts: 5,825
Ginger gets a spare tire! Clears roller skate brakes.

So I finally got another mod out of the way. This one is not an appearance or performance mod, but a safety mod. I fitted my convertible with a compact spare tire. I saw the threads about the Ebay kit, but if you haven't realized already I am super cheap and $430 plus shipping would be dangerously close to $500. So I got to sniffing around trying to find some good deals. I ended up putting together my own kit for about $181.52. Here is the price break down.
$80 a pair of 2.5" spacers
$70 machine shop making the center bore 67.1mm
$41 155/80 18 tire
$65.52 brand new GM spare rim 92230888

Now that ads up to $256.52 but that is because I have two 2.5" spacers and I am going to put one up for sale just so someone can split the cost of both spacers with me. I could not find a 5x120mm spacer in the size I needed and machine shops wanted over $120 to make just one. I lucked out and found a set that needed minimal work to fit our cars. The lug wrench, spare tire jack and lugs I had laying around but I saw you could pick all that up for about $20-$40 on Ebay.

This is NOT the size tire that comes in Camaros that do have spares or even the size that the guy on Ebay sells. The ones that come in the V6 as an option are 155/70 18 which are about 26.5" tall. The one the guy on Ebay sells is 145/80 18 which is about 27.1" tall. The one I used is 155/80 18 which is supposed to be 27.8" tall. I actually measured the circumference of my stock 20" and my 18" spare and got 28.8" and 28.2" tall (respectively). With only .6" of a difference I could probably be safe using it on the rear, but I would probably still put it on the front. I wanted to get a 28" tall spare because once I get my 18" Forgestar F14 I will be running 28" tall tires all the way around and I won't have to swap a front tire to the rear if I get a flat on the rear of the car, I can just put the spare on the rear to get me home.

Throughout this whole thing I only ran into two problems. One was that since the spare is so tall, it would not sit all the way in the spare tire well. So I had to deflate it from 60 psi to 35 psi. I put the jack, spacer and lug wrench in a little tool back I had and it had a little room left over so i threw in my stock fix a flat can and compressor. So I have the best of both worlds, a 28" tall spare if i have a blow out and the stock slime and compressor in case it is just a small nail or something. I also threw my full size rear tire in the trunk to make sure it could fit and it fit just fine, so obviously the front would fit also. The second problem was that the flat tire would not fit in the trunk with the top up. So a flat would end my top down fun

Since the front hub would free spin when tightening or loosening the spacer I also threw in a screwdriver to lock the rotor in place.
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Last edited by SUX2BU; 12-12-2011 at 07:01 PM.
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