Yoshihara Design Champion Rims & Falken FK453 Tires Install - Import Tuner Magazine

Being the car nuts we are, it's never easy settling on the looks of a stock car. There's always things that can be changed or things that can be improved. The biggest and most drastic change you can make to any car's appearance and performance is by swapping out the wheels and tires. Now that Project Legacy has got a serious set of coilovers on it, it's time the car got a new pair of shoes to complete the looks and handling.

We chose the new Falken Azenis FK 453 tires for our project car. As you know, Falken's Azenis FK452 is probably their most popular option in high-performance street tires. Being the company they are, however, Falken wanted to make a new-and-improved version that took all the great things that the 452 had plus a whole lot more.

The new GRB FK453's feature a whole new silica tread compound that improves wet and dry handling. They also have three circumferential grooves to improve water evacuation, and their asymmetric tread design allows for large shoulder blocks on the outside of the tire to improve cornering stability. Since Project Legacy will be spending most of its time on the street we wanted to make sure we chose a tire with a higher UTQG rating. With a rating of 300, the 453's are sure to give us plenty of mileage out of one set of tires.

To complete the package in the looks department we opted to go with a set of the new Yoshihara Design's Champion wheel.

Being a Subaru from the '90s, the Legacy is cursed with a very high factory offset and a 5x100-lug pattern. There aren't many wheel manufacturers out there who make good-looking wheels that can cater to this funky setup, but DY Designs had us covered. We sprung for the 18x9 +35 5x100 bronze centered setup because we knew they would look just right on the Legacy's black paint.

Once we picked up the wheels and tires, we took them over to the boys at 714 Tire in Westminster, CA, to make sure everything would be mounted up correctly and safely for the Leg.

These guys have been specializing in mounting performance wheels and tires for quite some time now, and they know what they are doing. We were confident that they wouldn't damage our wheels and tires during the mounting process.

The DY Champion wheels have a dual valve stem setup, which allows you to completely and properly inflate your tires with nitrogen. This dual valve stem setup can be a little tricky to get right because it requires some patience and skill to get the included hardware to fit correctly.

Luckily for us, this isn't the first time the guys at 714 Tires had seen this setup, and they got everything dialed in quickly.

Once we got all the wheels and tires mounted, it was time to swap the stock wheels for the new set of shoes. Since we had installed coilovers on the car before, and we went with a mildly aggressive wheel setup, we knew that there might be some finagling involved to get everything to fit just right. My buddy Phil lent me his driveway and jacks to let me dial in some suspension settings to give me some clearance before I got the car properly aligned.

Once the stockers came off, it was time to put the new setup on.

And torque everything down.

Then, it was time to enjoy the finished product.