Thanks for the link. Here's what I replied to tallassazn. To sum it up - on my '00 LE i4, 215 wide tires rubbed in the back and needed at least 3 mm spacer (I used 5 mm). To fit 225 would require about 10mm spacers...
The calipers cleared OK in the front, althought it is a tight fit. Drums were OK in the rear. Now I got rear disks from a v6 and they clear without problem too.
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"Hi, Sorry for the late reply - I was in vacation...
I believe your '98 Camry should be pretty much the
same as mine ('00) in terms of offset and rim
fittment.
The '01 IS300 rims that I now have on mine are 17x7
and have +50mm offset. This means they have about 10
mm more positive offset than the ideal for a Camry
(about 40).
Therefore, you DO NEED a spacer in the rear if you
plan to use any tire wider than 205 mm. I have
215/55/17 tires right now and without spacers the
rears rub the struts. I tried and you can't use them
without a spacer in the rear - the tire rubbed the
strut enough to cause strut paint and tire sidewall
damage.
This rubbing does not depend on whether the car is
lowered or not. Stock will rub the struts just the
same.
Spacer is a flat piece of metal sitting b/w the hub
and the rim, pushing the rim to the outside if the rim
has the wrong offset. If you need a +40 mm offset rim
but instead have a +50 (Camry needs 40, but the IS300
wheels are 50), you ideally would need 10mm spacer to
compensate (50-10=40).
So, you need ideally 4 10mm spacers - one 10mm spacer
on each wheel in the rear AND in the front to keep the
factory spec. But you can use thinner spacers and only
in the rear if you prefer.
I currently use only 5mm in the rear and no spacer in
the front and have no issues. The reason is that with
thicker spacers, besides the higher cost, you may run
into issues centering the wheels, etc. I bought mine
from an H&R distributor on the net.
You should not need a new alignment when you change
from IS to stock rims and back I think, but you will
need two sets of lug nuts (unless you already have
alloy OEM wheels with the washer-type lug nuts, in
which case you can probably reuse them with either
wheel)
With the 5mm spacer in the rear and 215 wide tires
there is about 3 mm clearance in the back to the strut
(there is plenty to the fenderwall). In the front
there is more than 10mm of clearance to the strut so
there is no need for spacer. I had initially a small
rubbing with the fender wall in the driver side front
on a full turn to the left (no problem to the right).
But this quickly went away - there was an excessive
lump of rubber undercoating sticking-out of the fender
wall that rubbed-off and it is fine now.
I have had no other problems.
So, to sum it up:
- You need spacers at least 5 mm spacer in the rear to
fit 215 tires. You will need 10 mm in the rear AND 5
mm in the front to fit a 225 wide tire.
- If you put spacers, you need longer wheel studs - if
you use 10mm spacer you need 10 mm longer stud. Toyota
sells some longer studs from other models that fit
Camry (I used front OEM studs in the rear that are
about 5mm longer than the OEM rears)
- If you put spacers, it is a bit harder to change the
wheel in case you get a flat or rotate tires (requires
you to hold it with more strength while
hand-tightening the lug-nuts initially, you're fine
after that). You need to remember to take the spacer
off when going back to OEM rims.
- With spacers the wheel is no longer hub-centric - it
rests mostly on the wheel studs. Is this bad - I've
heard various opinions, but it sure feels much more
snug when there is no spacer. This is why I did not
use one in the front and only 5 mm in the rear, which
still barely lets the hub center the wheel (anything
thicker than that will cover the hub bore so much that
it will not be useful for centering the wheel)."
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