Jason's LS400

Hey, I posted a couple times here waaay back. I'm a student still, so bucks are limited and this LS is my daily (for now). 

I bought it in 09 when i was 19 at 176000 km / 109000 miles. I was looking for any sedan really, and the LS400 just kinda fell into place. I knew I wanted to put rims on it, but I hadn't ever heard of VIP.

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This was her new.

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In 2011, I bought a set of 20" MKW wheels, and as I said, I knew nothing of the VIP ways.. they were 20x8 +40 with 245/35 rubber.

While I liked the general look of those wheels, I quickly realized how poor the fit was. Rather than go out for new wheels I figured I'd get the rust fixed up on the fenders and get rid of those hideous flares.

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I got small things done like a detail, tint, and lots of paint touched up. This is how she looked at the end of 2012.

2013 gave me a whole ton of problems that prevented me from any other 'happy" mods. I had a crank position sensor go, I had the harmonic balancer slip, dinking up all the timing, water pump, pullies. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't worse, with an Interference engine and all. I bought a donor engine and had the timing belts done, plugs, thermostat, pulleys, you name it.

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In 2014, I had a shock go. The spring were all uneven, so I got new stock springs on the front. I guess the old ones had sagged so much they were pretty much lowering springs. So now it was super 4x4 looking. As soon as it started to warm up this year I put on some Tanabe lowering springs. I had planned on buying some spacers to kinda correct my fitment for the time being.

I figured, flipping the old rims, the cost of spacers, and the amount my poor fitment would bug me, it was worth buying new wheels. I ended up getting a set of TSW Snettertons. I know they're no Weds or Work or a super high end wheel, BUT they fit my budget AND I live in Winnipeg, where you have either potholes or snow all tear round.

I figured I'll be happy with the Tanabe springs for now, so I stuck with 20's to decrease wheel gap with a minimal drop. I used resources here, club lexus, willtheyfit  and rimtuck to come to the conclusion that The Snetterton in silver, 20x8.5 +25 front and 20x10 +20 rear would fit nicely.

I figured a 245/35 rear, and a 225/35 front looked good on those rim widths, but I ended up bumping the rears up to 255/35 for fear of potholes.

I put em on today and here's how they look.

[URL]https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1ra4lad6meggt6s/SaN7QJdgGu[/URL]

I'm curious to know what the experts think. Seems like my offset is a touch too aggressive, and my stretch is a touch too conservative. I'm a bit disappointed that my "numbers" didn't come out perfect, but it looks like I'm working with the right stuff. I suppose the next step is to look for a custom alignment to pull those tire shoulder back in a bit, as well as roll and/or pull the fenders a bit.

I figured my ride is respectable enough to post up here. The amount of beautiful cars on here is intimidating man!

well, you are only like 1-2" lower than stock with the Tanabe's so don't expect much. The wheel specs are pretty mild actually, with a better drop and more camber it would look a lot better.
Camber and less tire would probably look better but less tire on a 8.5 and 10 is getting pretty small. 9.5s and 11s would probably have been a better choice.

I'm running 19x10 32et in the front and 19x11 33et on the front and with a decent drop and still relatively mild camber of -3ºF and -4.4ºR, i'm just slightly sunken from flush.
You are giving up just over an inch of width to the wheels on the inside of the fronts and rears. 
the tires you have are not stretched at all which is probably why it's not looking like you want.

The wheels and specs you went with look a little more like a 1LS fitment than a 2LS fitment, the tires, i'm not sure where you got those sizes from. Did you ask any questions about this setup prior to buying?

It looks pretty good, still not VIP, but it would be a good daily setup in an area with crappy roads.
Certainly a HUGE improvement over the previous setup! :)

There were 4 2LS's on [URL="http://rimtuck.com/search/datasheet&make=Lexus&model=LS&yearfrom=1995&yearto=2000&diameterr=20&widthr=10&sort=1"]rimtuck[/URL] with very similar wheel sizes and offsets that I used for comparison. I felt safe with more tire on the rear given that I saw cars with a lower offset were still inside their fenders. The car with the same rear specs seemed to be exactly where I wanted. I used the maths to determine that an 8.5 +20 should be really similar to a 9 +25, and even then those examples, their fronts were inside or at the fender. All of these cars that have wheels that calculate to be xmm further in, or further out than my specs seem to be WAY further in. Is that because of the drop? or neg camber? Or am i missing something else?

The widths of my wheels were more a less a function of the money I was spending on em.. :S. Looks like I can just get away with more camber for now.. I'll have to go take a peek at where my adjusters are at, them determine how much I can camber vs, how much I can pull the fender.

I am at least happy to hear you think it's a huge improvement.