Technically, Kevin’s Porsche 911 GT3 is a “street car”. However upon close inspection, one must ask, “Would you really want to drive this seemingly painful car on the street?” Hell yes!
Today’s mission was to eject the slicks tires from Kevin’s second set of BBS wheels in favor of spare Toyo R888s, and then mount those wheels to his car. The main challenge was dealing with the center-lock reality of his Porsche — that’s one BIG lug nut per wheel.
The wheels-to-be came with a set of Hoosier slicks attached, with the rears being a wide 315/30/18. It’s rare, but not new to me. Still, it’s always quite the sight to see how wide 315s are in person.
With the tires removed, here’s what one of the rear wheels looked like. Geez, that’s steam-roller status. Unfortunately, there was a fair amount of gunk that ought to be cleaned off.
After removing the old tires, the new (old) set of Toyo R888 tires were installed, officially ending the EASY part of the whole process.
Unbolting and re-bolting the center-lock nut was the most challenging part to deal with. I wish I had pictures of Kevin and I fumbling around with the special extra long breaker bar and torque wrench. It begged the question, “Is this actually better than conventional 5-lug setups?”
Perhaps, the benefit of having a center-lock setup kicks in when you’ve got the correct power tools to do this job like a professional race team’s pit crew. I hear the tools cost a few thousand dollars. But they’d make the job much easier and faster. Maybe one day!
