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10-27-2004, 09:36 AM
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So the Ro_ja R2-5's are finally installed. It was a long process between finding the right wheel, having the first set arrive damaged and then figuring out the best way to take care of the tire pressure sensors.
The Wheel equipment is Carbon Black Roja R2-5's in 19x8.5 for the fronts and 19x10.5 for the rear (see ROJA ). The tires are BFG KDWII (new tread pattern) with 245/35r19 for fronts and 285/35r19 for rear (see KDWII ). Credit for the TPSM solution goes to BZNYA at My305z.com but I'll re-illustrate it here...
Lesson#1 - leave the cloth cover on the finished surface of the wheel while you are working around it or you will do something stupid to scratch your brand new wheels.
The biggest pain once I decided to go ahead and use the metal band solution as opposed to drilling a second set of stem holeswas finding the right metal bands. I spent 3 weeks going to hardware stores and local insutrial tool shops before finding the right grade materials. Similar to BZNYA, I found a medium grade kit with 50feet of band and a bunch of worrm drive clamps to make your own length. had previously found some lower grade stuff called "band-it" that was too flimsy. Band Length needed will vary, but I only needed about 25 feet of banding for all four wheels. I then bought plywood spacers and bent them into brackets to fit on the band.
Since I don't have the luxery of a tire machine in my garage, I also needed to prepare the bands before taking the wheels in to get the work done. And Since I couldn't take out my tire pressure sensors before getting the work done, I wnet to the local Nissan dealer and bought one spare sensor (for $300 but made sure I was able to return it so long as I didn't install it). I just used the spare sensor to size up the brackets. I then cut the four bands to appropriate lentgh with tin snips.
I then labeled all four sets of bands brackets and clamps to bring into the tire shop with me. I went to a few different places, but was most confortable with a local Les Schwab store. I chose it mainly becase the manager was very open to my project even though I didn't buy any of the parts through him and said he would reserve a bay for me and provide me workspace to do the banding work on my own. This is a big accomodation since it slows the process considerably and they are only charging me $170 for all the work.
So I took all my stuff down to the shop and they took off my stock wheels
Once the stock Rays were off, I noticed alot of rust on the hub behind the wheels and am wondring if I need to get some oil or something for it? Anyone else notice this problem?
I didn't have anything to put on the rust area, so I decided to ignore it for now.
Lesson#2 - If you have Rays with TPSM's, once the stock wheel are off and deflated, you need to take the retaining nut off the stems and push the stems back into the wheel BEFORE YOU BREAK THE BEAD on the tire or you will break the sensors. I found this by reading the alignment TSB that gave instrustions to the Nissan service techs about this, but the Les Schwab guys wouldn't have known this if I didn't show it to them, so be careful.
Lesson#3 - Label everything. Be sure to mark which wheel the sensors came from as they are taken out or it's easy to get stuff mixed up. Also make sure the tire guys reinsert the stem core if they took it out to deflate the tire.
Once you have the stem/sensor out, slide it half way onto the precut metal band. I chose half way because If you situate the sensor 180 degrees from the Ro_Ja stems the assembly is more likely to aid in balancing the wheel.
Use a dab of "lock-tite" or other thread lock on the stem cap and retaining nuts to make sure mothing comes loose inside the wheel from vibration.
Once the sensor is on the band and the assembly is tight, wrap the band around the wheel and set up the worm drive clamp next to the wheel's stem hole. This will put the sensor on the opposit side of the wheel as mentioned above (like they use to do with the corvette sensor banding.)
Once the band is wrapped and positioned correctly and in the drop center of the wheel, tighten the worm drive and add more Lock Tite as you go (Again to ensure the strap won't come loose in the wheel from vibration). As you tighten the worm dirve clamp, you should notice that everything tightens up considerably and nothing moves with the sensor snug up against the wheel.
With the band on, the tire guys were able to mount my new tires (BFG KDW's). They actually put brand new heads on the tire machine to avoid scratching my wheels (More Thanks goes out to Paul and the Kent Les Schwab guys!).
It took them a long time to put the tire on eahc wheel because they had to take care to get the tire over the sensor/band without breaking anything.
Once the first one was done, it was like clockwork Until...
We figured out the, although the Ro_Ja's were made for the 350z, they don't compensate for the Rotor Bolt on the front hubs of my car. We made a few calls and decided to just remove the Rotor Bolts. Has anyone else run into this issue?
Although the stock lugs would have fit, I bought a set of more narrow lugs so as to avoid sratching the wheels when taking off in the future.
Although it is tight, the 285's actual do fit in the well nicely with the +32 offset in the rear.
The first side took 2 hours, the other side took less than one hour.
A few shots of the front and back wheels. A bought a spare set of chrome stems from the tire shop and they remounted my stock track wheels without sensors so I could seel them mounted.
Nice to finally see them on after weeks of looking at wheel boxes in my garage.
Here is an interesting couple shots showing how narrow the clearance is on the front Brembo calipers.
And the finished product, By the way, the sensors work perfect without having to recalibrate anything. They recommendend 40 PSI on the performance tires and all four sensors chimed in with 40 straight up.
Another note is that you should have performance wheels tourqed to 90lbs and then red-torqued/balanced after 50-100 miles. Here are a couple comparison shots...
My opinion overall, the 19"ers and KDW's fill out the wheel wells much better and give the Z a more aggresive/sporty appearance.
The 285's also compliment my new Nismo pipes!
So that's it, needless to say I am very happy. When the wheels were on, I almost expected X-hibit to jump out and pop my collar (OK maybe overdoing it a bit now).
I've updated my profile with all the mods Ive done and this will be it for a while so that my bank account may recover. If you care to see my previous posts on other mods, here you go....
Audio Mods and Sunroof...
HERE
Nismo Upgrades Just Done...
HERE
My first set of wheels that were damaged...
HERE
All my previous posts...
HERE
Later JC
The Wheel equipment is Carbon Black Roja R2-5's in 19x8.5 for the fronts and 19x10.5 for the rear (see ROJA ). The tires are BFG KDWII (new tread pattern) with 245/35r19 for fronts and 285/35r19 for rear (see KDWII ). Credit for the TPSM solution goes to BZNYA at My305z.com but I'll re-illustrate it here...
Lesson#1 - leave the cloth cover on the finished surface of the wheel while you are working around it or you will do something stupid to scratch your brand new wheels.
The biggest pain once I decided to go ahead and use the metal band solution as opposed to drilling a second set of stem holeswas finding the right metal bands. I spent 3 weeks going to hardware stores and local insutrial tool shops before finding the right grade materials. Similar to BZNYA, I found a medium grade kit with 50feet of band and a bunch of worrm drive clamps to make your own length. had previously found some lower grade stuff called "band-it" that was too flimsy. Band Length needed will vary, but I only needed about 25 feet of banding for all four wheels. I then bought plywood spacers and bent them into brackets to fit on the band.
Since I don't have the luxery of a tire machine in my garage, I also needed to prepare the bands before taking the wheels in to get the work done. And Since I couldn't take out my tire pressure sensors before getting the work done, I wnet to the local Nissan dealer and bought one spare sensor (for $300 but made sure I was able to return it so long as I didn't install it). I just used the spare sensor to size up the brackets. I then cut the four bands to appropriate lentgh with tin snips.
I then labeled all four sets of bands brackets and clamps to bring into the tire shop with me. I went to a few different places, but was most confortable with a local Les Schwab store. I chose it mainly becase the manager was very open to my project even though I didn't buy any of the parts through him and said he would reserve a bay for me and provide me workspace to do the banding work on my own. This is a big accomodation since it slows the process considerably and they are only charging me $170 for all the work.
So I took all my stuff down to the shop and they took off my stock wheels
Once the stock Rays were off, I noticed alot of rust on the hub behind the wheels and am wondring if I need to get some oil or something for it? Anyone else notice this problem?
I didn't have anything to put on the rust area, so I decided to ignore it for now.
Lesson#2 - If you have Rays with TPSM's, once the stock wheel are off and deflated, you need to take the retaining nut off the stems and push the stems back into the wheel BEFORE YOU BREAK THE BEAD on the tire or you will break the sensors. I found this by reading the alignment TSB that gave instrustions to the Nissan service techs about this, but the Les Schwab guys wouldn't have known this if I didn't show it to them, so be careful.
Lesson#3 - Label everything. Be sure to mark which wheel the sensors came from as they are taken out or it's easy to get stuff mixed up. Also make sure the tire guys reinsert the stem core if they took it out to deflate the tire.
Once you have the stem/sensor out, slide it half way onto the precut metal band. I chose half way because If you situate the sensor 180 degrees from the Ro_Ja stems the assembly is more likely to aid in balancing the wheel.
Use a dab of "lock-tite" or other thread lock on the stem cap and retaining nuts to make sure mothing comes loose inside the wheel from vibration.
Once the sensor is on the band and the assembly is tight, wrap the band around the wheel and set up the worm drive clamp next to the wheel's stem hole. This will put the sensor on the opposit side of the wheel as mentioned above (like they use to do with the corvette sensor banding.)
Once the band is wrapped and positioned correctly and in the drop center of the wheel, tighten the worm drive and add more Lock Tite as you go (Again to ensure the strap won't come loose in the wheel from vibration). As you tighten the worm dirve clamp, you should notice that everything tightens up considerably and nothing moves with the sensor snug up against the wheel.
With the band on, the tire guys were able to mount my new tires (BFG KDW's). They actually put brand new heads on the tire machine to avoid scratching my wheels (More Thanks goes out to Paul and the Kent Les Schwab guys!).
It took them a long time to put the tire on eahc wheel because they had to take care to get the tire over the sensor/band without breaking anything.
Once the first one was done, it was like clockwork Until...
We figured out the, although the Ro_Ja's were made for the 350z, they don't compensate for the Rotor Bolt on the front hubs of my car. We made a few calls and decided to just remove the Rotor Bolts. Has anyone else run into this issue?
Although the stock lugs would have fit, I bought a set of more narrow lugs so as to avoid sratching the wheels when taking off in the future.
Although it is tight, the 285's actual do fit in the well nicely with the +32 offset in the rear.
The first side took 2 hours, the other side took less than one hour.
A few shots of the front and back wheels. A bought a spare set of chrome stems from the tire shop and they remounted my stock track wheels without sensors so I could seel them mounted.
Nice to finally see them on after weeks of looking at wheel boxes in my garage.
Here is an interesting couple shots showing how narrow the clearance is on the front Brembo calipers.
And the finished product, By the way, the sensors work perfect without having to recalibrate anything. They recommendend 40 PSI on the performance tires and all four sensors chimed in with 40 straight up.
Another note is that you should have performance wheels tourqed to 90lbs and then red-torqued/balanced after 50-100 miles. Here are a couple comparison shots...
My opinion overall, the 19"ers and KDW's fill out the wheel wells much better and give the Z a more aggresive/sporty appearance.
The 285's also compliment my new Nismo pipes!
So that's it, needless to say I am very happy. When the wheels were on, I almost expected X-hibit to jump out and pop my collar (OK maybe overdoing it a bit now).
I've updated my profile with all the mods Ive done and this will be it for a while so that my bank account may recover. If you care to see my previous posts on other mods, here you go....
Audio Mods and Sunroof...
HERE
Nismo Upgrades Just Done...
HERE
My first set of wheels that were damaged...
HERE
All my previous posts...
HERE
Later JC
10-27-2004, 09:58 AM
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AWESOME! Looks especially good on the silver. Very suprised to hear about the issue with the bolt on the rotor. I would think roja would have prepared for that. Also i dont recall seeing that problem anywhere else. Nice choice on wheels though!
10-27-2004, 12:09 PM
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FYI that bolt has to be removed with almost every aftermarket wheel out there. It serves no purpose only so that you don't put your rear wheels on the front of the car during a tire rotation, since the car comes with a staggered setup from the factory. A simple search on here would provide many links to the same issue.
Originally posted by ttsupra94
AWESOME! Looks especially good on the silver. Very suprised to hear about the issue with the bolt on the rotor. I would think roja would have prepared for that. Also i dont recall seeing that problem anywhere else. Nice choice on wheels though!
AWESOME! Looks especially good on the silver. Very suprised to hear about the issue with the bolt on the rotor. I would think roja would have prepared for that. Also i dont recall seeing that problem anywhere else. Nice choice on wheels though!
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10-27-2004, 12:53 PM
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What happens on Z's equipped with the TPSM is that your get a PSI warning light and sound when the receiver doesn't get information from the transponders in the wheels.
I witnessed this when I let my pressure go below 30 once. Anyway, I have heard many reports from those with aftermarket wheels. Some say the lights come on after 30 minutes of driving and don't go away until you shut off the engine. Others say they come on right away and stay on. Yet other say they get them only intermittantly.
Either way, it would have annoyed me to much so I went through the hassle to transplant my sensors into my new wheels.
Beside banding them, the only other way is to drill a second set of stem holes in the back of the wheel's drop center to accomodate the sensors. This is how the shop reccommended I do it, but I was uncomfortable with the idea of drilling into my new wheels and the banding method was well addressed in BZNYA's post.
I witnessed this when I let my pressure go below 30 once. Anyway, I have heard many reports from those with aftermarket wheels. Some say the lights come on after 30 minutes of driving and don't go away until you shut off the engine. Others say they come on right away and stay on. Yet other say they get them only intermittantly.
Either way, it would have annoyed me to much so I went through the hassle to transplant my sensors into my new wheels.
Beside banding them, the only other way is to drill a second set of stem holes in the back of the wheel's drop center to accomodate the sensors. This is how the shop reccommended I do it, but I was uncomfortable with the idea of drilling into my new wheels and the banding method was well addressed in BZNYA's post.
10-27-2004, 06:40 PM
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Man they look really awsome on silver. I love mine (pics below).
Anyways we without a doubt have the best prices on RO_JA wheels.
We carry the RO_JA by Rays R2-5 wheel in Carbon black as well as silver.
If any one needs a price PM or call us at 949 939-5413.
Thanks
Paul Gibson
www.350zonline.com/store/customer/home.php
Anyways we without a doubt have the best prices on RO_JA wheels.
We carry the RO_JA by Rays R2-5 wheel in Carbon black as well as silver.
If any one needs a price PM or call us at 949 939-5413.
Thanks
Paul Gibson
www.350zonline.com/store/customer/home.php
Last edited by Red6; 10-27-2004 at 07:35 PM.
10-27-2004, 07:25 PM
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I paid $2,300 shipped for the wheel set 19x8.5 fronts and 19x10.5 backs. I paid $900 shipped for the KDWII Tire set 245/35r19 fronts and 285/35r19 backs.
I checked out your website and the wheels look great on red Z too. Maybe I should have talked to you first!!!
I checked out your website and the wheels look great on red Z too. Maybe I should have talked to you first!!!
10-27-2004, 11:39 PM
#16
Yea 285's fit perfect in the rear, i have 20inch Maya STMs with 285's in the rear and an eibach prokit and it fits perfect didnt even need to grind/roll fenders, you should definetly look into getting some springs to lower your Z you will be so happy with the appearance
02-28-2005, 05:48 AM
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Looks like I'm going to have to do the same as you all as well since I have some new RH pro J5's sitting in my garage waiting to be bolted on. The tires are already mounted on the rim, but I was wondering if there's a possibility the TPS sensors will fit in the stem hole already there. Will boring out the original hole work or most of you finding that you're having to band them? Also those, did you make those brackets to hold the sensor on the band? I'm not sure I've seen anything like that before. Thanks for the help! -Lee