I was seeing if you guys can come up with some cool ideas for making my stock oem 14" "cookie cutter" style wheels look better being that I am on a poor man's budget trying to get my car looking better and running. check my other post about ebay rotors to see what I have done to the suspension/brakes. here is what I have come up with. Keep in mind that I'm not trying to get the "ricey" look so if my ideas lean toward that let me know. I'm sure there will be lots of differences on that subject. anyway:

budget for this project: $200

A - sand them down gradually from 600 to 1000 grit and polish them with a buffer and aluminum polish. cheapest route but VERY time consuming

B - all of the above except paint them myself with that gunmetal wheel paint from autozone. cheap but ricey and prone to getting chipped easier.

C - sand them down and have them painted a certain color. black, gunmetal, bronze, etc. i would do the sanding. then about $40-50 a wheel to have them professionaly painted / clear coated. this would look nice but whats the worth factor?

D - fork over even more bucks to have them powder coated

E- chrome plated? probably too much money and not worth it for those wheels

F sell them for $100 or more with tires and possible save another 100-200 and fork over cash for some very inexpensive 15" rims and get tires later and i mean way later. this sucks because i would be without wheels/tires for many months.


Anyone else have other options?

 

Get cheap rims for <$200 ? I'm sure it's possible... Most rims look better than phone dials / swiss cheese / cookie cutter / <insert analogy for SE rims here> IMO.

I mean if you can get sell the set for 50, and have a budget of 250, maybe you can find something cheap that looks okay. Check a junkyard or something... I think someone got fitapaldi's (sp?) for $80/4 rims at a junk/scrap place or something. *shrug*

 

i'm not sure what other cars have that same 4 lug pattern but maybe you could find some stock wheels off anotherc car that look better because honestly i hate those rims, sorry i had em too though. but if your gonna work with em just polish em up paint will chip like you said even if done by a pro and pwdercoat is to much money for those rims as is chrome. maybe even find a scrap d lug fc and do a five lug conversion the stock 5 lug wheels aren't bad

 

well i was saying sell mine for 100 or so, plus add 200 that i have cash, and maybe save another 200 thats around 4-500 for some nicer wheels. but i dont know if i can wait that long. i'm leaning toward painting them and leaving the polished lip. i don't want this to turn into another "that's rice" thread so keep all comments constructive and not deterrant please. with that said i kinda like this idea....

 

^that looks kinda hot, have you ever heard of www.rentnroll.com ? buy wheels pay weekly/monthly. And I think the 4 lug lug pattern is 4 X 4.5, isn't that honda pattern?

 

I would glass bead em. I think the stock wheels look cool.

 

the bolt pattern is 114x4 if i am not mistaked and alot of hondas have the same bolt pattern so like accord rims or maybe grs rim or somethin like that would fit or just get some wheel from someone that has a honda and wants to sell their heels

 

the bolt pattern is 114x4 if i am not mistaked and alot of hondas have the same bolt pattern so like accord rims or maybe grs rim or somethin like that would fit or just get some wheel from someone that has a honda and wants to sell their wheels

 

Its not the honda pattern. I checked myself . Some swirlies would have looked nice on my fc.
Ii think the rx7 5 lug is the same as the prelude/type r pattern but dont quote me.

 

I like those phone dials pictured above. im gonna do mine just liek that till i gte everythign i need for my 5 lug/fd wheel swap. I still need my longer studs, spacers and ss brake-lines.

 

Most Honda patterns are 4x100, there are a very few that are 4x114.3, an Accord or something like that. I think there is an old Porsche pattern that fits also, off of the 914 maybe?

What color is your car? You could match the center of the wheel to your body color and polish the lip. You can find a decent hvlp touchup gun at Lowes, I bought mine for $50, and it is about the right size to do rims.

I bought 16x7 rims for mine with tires and spent over $900 with my discount. Made a huge difference in handling and traction, couldn't even turn them when they were new.

 

my car looks just like the one pictured.. red

 

i've used duplicolor High Performance Wheel Paint, its good stuff, its not ricey to paint your wheels alot of people get good results with paint, but powdercoating owns all

 

Just this morning I saw a red S4 with wheels done up like in the photo above. It looked pretty sharp, because the entire car had a red with black trim theme (dark tinted windows, black spoiler, black trim, black wheels with polished lip).

I say just stick with what you have until you can afford something significantly better with good tires. Go with Duplicolor paint and take your time.

 

90-97 accord 87-91 legend fit mustangs dont i tried that my sister had an SE civic and integra dont fit as long as it's the big 4 lug honda pattern they should work the problem is brakes make sure your calipers clear go with like a 93 accord coupe 6 spoke wheel they'd probably look ok