snags922

I just bought my second Wrangler. I never did any mods to my previous Wrangler. But I want to do a lot with this one. Many of the items I have listed on my JK are not actually on yet! I live in upstate NY so all these items are sitting in my garage (that I don't have room to work on my JK in) till I get some warm weather.

Anyway, I am looking at putting on 18x9 Fuel Octane - flat black wheels and 305/60R18 or 325/60R18 Dick Cepek Mud Country tires. I think these should work fine once I install the BW flat fender flares. Anyone have any experience with these? With those different sizes and stock suspension?

Also, I want to enjoy the stock ride for a few years before adding a lift kit. I was looking at Spidertrax 1.5" wheel spacers for front and back. First of all, since I am fairly new to all these mods, I wanted to make sure I understand the purpose of wheel spacers. Are they used to get rid of any rubbing caused by wider tires? Do they serve any other purpose?

wittys-jk

They help you with articulating clearance and just give the jeep a wider stance altogether. Some say it drives better with the wider stance but I havn't noticed any better or worse handling but hey we are not driving sports after all.

Enjoy the Jeep and start with a budget boost when you are ready to lift your jeep it will be a less expensive way to have some lift until you are ready to jack it up like the rest of us. I am at 2.5" and I want to go 4"-6" with my next lift.

It never ends.

snags922

Thanks for the info. How do you like the Nitto tires? Are they noisy on the highway?

SB2008

The wheel spacers will give you a wider stance and prevent tire rubbing, but because you are adding new wheels you may not need them. Someone can probably chime in about the backspacing on the wheels you are looking at and answer that question. As far as enjoying the stock ride there are many lifts out there that will lift jeep and also provide a ride very close to stock. I have used rock krawler and rough country, both have good ride with rock krawler being a tad stiffer and rough country retaining pretty close to factory ride. I would suggest to save a little $$ and install a coil lift over a BB, no sense in doing it twice. Good luck!

snags922

The Fuel Octane wheels have 4.5" of backspacing. The wheel without spacers MIGHT be fine for the 305/60R18 because they are 12.1" wide and 32.6" high. But the 325/60R18 are 13.3" wide and 33.2" high which might cause some rubbing without the 1.5" wheel spacers. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I would really like to hear it. Thanks.

wittys-jk

Like a small plane is following me but I love the sound.

snags922

Haha...I want to get a MagnaFlow cat-back system so that is already going to sound like a small plane is following me!