Honda Car Forum

I have a 1990 Acura Integra, completely stock. (14" wheels with 4 Lug bolt pattern). I want to purchase some larger, Honda factory wheels for my car. (http://www.finishlinewheels.com/HOND...04/A-63879U20/ to be exact). These are 17" wheels.However, my local Acura Dealership has warned me that going over 15" wheels on this model is damaging to the vehicle; over $1000 in suspension modifications is needed for a proper installation of 16"+ wheels. Is this true? Are there any ways of avoiding such expensive modifications besides using a smaller wheel size?Thanks in advance for any help.

Well a couple things you should know...1. Putting larger wheels and tires means that your spedo will no longer be reading the correct time, and you will have to modify the computer to read the correct speed.2. If you go too large, the turning radius of the car will be affected, and if you go way to large, the wheels may actually hit the car.3. Due to the increase in rolling resistance, putting larger wheels on your car will slow it down and affect gas mileage unless you plan on getting ultralight rimsas far as suspension mods go, this is probably because the car needs to be higher so the wheels wont hit the car.

First thing you have to do is have the speedo drive changed or you will be travelling much faster than the speedo registers.

Make sure the new tires you get have the same rolling diameter as what is currently on the vehicle. Larger rims don't always mean a screwed up speedometer. You won't find an exact match, but you should be able to get something pretty close, so you'll probably be 1 or 2 mph off, but not enough to really cause any harm. You'll have smaller sidewalls, so you shouldn't really worry much about suspension yet. Go outside, and measure from the bottom of the tire, to the very top of the tire. Your new setup can't be any larger than that.

Bigger, heavier wheels takes a toll on transmissions, too. Takes a lot more to spin a 16"+ wheel than it does a 13" or 14" wheel.

I ran 17's on my hatch, and didn't need to change the suspension to make it work, but chose to do it anyway because it was something I wanted to do. It was a tight fit, but it worked nonetheless...