ROLLING ON DUBS!
Nothing changes a project car more than a fresh set of shoes, and finally, Paul has got his Mustang sitting pretty
Spoiler alert for this month’s update! I reckon you eagle-eyed readers have already spotted what’s been going on.
I introduced the rather lovely Dotz Misano in the last issue. Not only were they rather easy on the eye in their shapely 20in form, but they also represented a fairly monumental weight saving over the factory’s somewhat hefty 19in jobbies. Looking good and reducing rotating mass? I’m always up for a bit of that.
My issue at the time was that although Wheelwright (the UK importer for Dotz) had done an amazing job of getting me the wheels on time despite all the fun that European parts are having at our borders at the moment, I hadn’t been able to find any tyres in the staggered 255/275 size that I wanted.
After ringing around the usual suspects, it was actually the good people at Davanti who got in touch, and offered to get me hooked up with a set of their new Protoura rubber.
The firm has recently signed Sir Chris Hoy as their ambassador, and I’d been seeing a few ads popping up on my social for a while, so it seemed like the perfect chance to give a set a try and see how they coped with the additional power now being put down by the Mustang after its recent HP Tuners remap down at Wortec.
Dropping the rims over at Treadmark, my go-to guys for fitting and balancing, it was good to see that the new Davanti rubber hadn’t really required much balancing at all. A reassuringly small amount of weights told me that these are clearly very decent tyre case mouldings, and in addition to that, I even really liked the tread pattern!
So then it was just a case of fitting the new boots up. Despite having access to a full lift set-up, I decided to go ghetto and old school and do it all on the flat with my trusty Draper trolley jack.
When I’m fitting new combos and working out offsets and spacer requirements, I’d actually much rather work on the floor, as you can get the car down to its ride height much more quickly than if you have to keep fetching it off the two-post every time you find a new set-up. And I knew there might be a tiny bit of head-scratching in front of me.
I knew that the wheels would fit just fine, but bolting up a front I did think – like the standard wheels – they did look a little tucked on such a low car. The solution was simple, and already in the toolbox! The 20mm Steeda spacers that I’d used previously to get the OEM wheels right to the edge of the arches
also turned out to be the perfect mod to get the new Dotz wheels out to almost millimetric perfection at each corner.
The fronts are sitting perfectly, whereas the rears are looking incredibly close to the arches. For now, I’ve stiffened up the Bilstein B16s to make sure there’s no rubbing, but as I like how much those 275s fill the rear aspect I think I’m tempted to get the bodyshop to gently pull them by a millimetre or two to allow the car to get full compression. There’s a camber tuck as the suspension compresses anyway, so we might be okay, but I think it’s worth playing it safe.
With these latest changes, I think the stance of the car is looking pretty epic now. Time to look at a couple of aesthetics to add that finishing touch, I think! Until then!