Hey, I just found this site and am hoping to get a little insight into an improvement I'm thinking about for my fiance's car. I use her impreza wagon to tow my and my pals yamaha R6s to the track. By the way, the little 1.8 liter engine has no problem maintaining 75-80 mph, which is as fast as I want to go while doing towing.

Anyways, the only thing that isn't quite ideal is that the trailer rides a bit low in front, and the car rides a bit low in the rear (not too surprising). I know I could look into stiffer springs in the back of her car, or add air springs, but the current arangement does work pretty well. Since I want to take the 14 inch yoko avid's off her car and put them put them on my miata, I thought I might try to improve the towing situation with new wheels and tires for her car. She doesn't mind my towing my stuff with her car, and when I asked her is she'd mind if I rallycross it, she was cool with that too. Got to love a woman like that- and why not show the love with new wheels and tires.

So, I'm thinking I'd like to increase the ride height of her car as much as possible with a new wheel and tire combo. I'd like something strong, relatively light, but as cheap as possible. I was thinking 17 inch Rota Attacks with yoko avids, but I wonder if I'd be better off with more sidewall. Would you go with that, or would you try and find stock 16 inch alloy wheels. This won't look as nice as I think a set of bronze attacks would look on her white car, but sometimes you've got to sacrafice looks in favor of utility. One last question- what's the biggest tire I can put on the 16 incher that will still have "proper fitment".

I know this was long- sorry about that.
Thanks alot

 

Thanks dude, When I started looking into changing the wheels, I observed the inverse relationship between rim size and tire height. However, this car already had 60 series tires on it, so I thought that going with stock wrx rims with their 55 series tires would get me an inch more ride height, strong wheels and preserve a decent amount of air volume.

I snagged a set from craigslist and put on the wrx wheels last night, and the car looks transformed, though I haven't hooked up the trailer with bikes to see if it still looks like it is doing a small wheelie.

Your idea of balancing the trailer further back makes sense, but you have to have the front wheel of the bikes all the way at the front of this trailer, as the chocks are built into the walls. I suppose buying new chocks and placing them further back would work.

Before doing that, I'm wondering if my rear springs may be a bit weak. I know stock springs shouldn't wear out at 80K, but the front seems quite a bit higher than the back, even accounting for the larger front wheel well.

Since we take this car onto really bad dirt roads when camping, I'd like to see about raising the rear about an inch. Stiffer springs, spring spacer, air spring...?

 

Another thing to consider is that the bigger the tire circumference, the less torque the car is putting to the road. Considering its a 1.8L, you may not be able to sacrifice much before it has trouble towing up hills. You might have to regear the diffs to make up for the change in wheel size.

I tow bikes with my 2.5rs. Aside from an occasional problem with the ecu (leans out too much with the trailer on the highway) that causes the car to run rough for a few minutes, it does fine. I agree that you should try to balance the trailer better; it should have no more than 100 to 150 lbs of weight on the trailer tongue.