hi i was wondering how hard it would be to get 33 12.5 15s onto a vitara

cheers

ben

Lots of cutting required. I have 33 x 9.5s on mine, I tried a set of 33 x 12.5s but it would have too much work to get them on without going silly on a body lift. You'll also struggle to get the gearing right.

pictures !!!!!!

With the IFS theres not realy any realistic way to get enough lift to clear it (Other then a massive body lift). You could cut the arches away but then im pretty sure they would rub the bulkhead on articulation also because there so wide they would rub the chassis when turning. You would constantly blow up shafts and diffs if it looked at mud. The awful gearing would also make the car very difficult to drive offroad and in my opinion virtualy useless for anything.

This is an old picture of it with a 2" spring lift and a 3" body lift.



Its been cut back about 1" at the back of the front arch and the trim moved backwards.
The footwells have been cut and moved back about 1". It still rubbed but I now have a 3" Calmini suspension lift, with that and the modified bodywork its OK but with 12.5s the outside of the tyre moves in a really big arc so you would need to cut away a lot of the wing. I have 5:83 R&Ps, I ran it with the stock 5:12s at Tong once and it was pretty hopeless.
The wheels and tyres on the Vit in that pic are off Dave Jones' SuperZuki, I bought them when he went to 35s
Those rims have 95mm of backspacing and needed the lockstops adjusted just a tiny amount. The 12.5s that I have are on Fatboy rims with 110mm of backspacing and would hit the chassis quite badly.

if you do the hagen mod, you can run this size tyre without any arch trimming/bashing. as it moves the front wheels forward, to create clearance, and also improve your approach angle.

There can be are serious issues with the brakes when doing that mod with stock wishbones, at the time my car was being driven 80 miles a day commuting and I did hundreds of miles to and from off road sites too. I even drove it to Sweden for the Sweden Off Road Tour in 2002. The Hagen mod would also mean that the wheels would stick out beyond the arches and would also make the car eligible for the much feared IVA test which costs hundreds of pounds.
If I ever get the Bushwacker arches then I will look at running the 12.5s, there have been a few people who have run them in the past, MarkyB and a guy from Northampton whose name (Ian?) escapes me for the moment.

I also ran them on my swb, but like rhinoman and everyone else says I had to cut the floor/sill ect and have a 3" body lift, and the gearing became to much for the little 1.6 .

true about the brake issues.

but IVA, for drilling 2 holes in the chassis cross member???

Those two holes extend the wheelbase and alter the front steering geometry so its really quite a significant change. It could also be considered a weakening of the front crossmember.

IVA? CAN OF WORMS? ...............runs for cover whilst getting my coat!.
rich

what is this hagden mod

We had a member in our Club run 33x12.5s on a Vit with no bodylift and about 1 inch of suspension lift but there was a bit of hammering and cutting involved The firewall became the new accelerator pedal stop

Here it is

I dont realy understand why you would want to do that? Sure you have a bit more room under the diffs and front suspension arms but is that realy worth having no engine braking, no low speed control and breaking the chocolate front drive train all the time?