- This is our new project rally car. And this is the wheel and
tire setup that came on it. Very basic. As you may or may not know, we just bought this bone
stock, beautiful BMW E36, and we've been modifying it
into our own DIY rally car. So we're gonna be doing a bunch of rally inspired
modifications to this car to hopefully make it
better at rally stuff. And along the way, we'll be
determining whether or not the modifications have been worth all of our time and our money. So, today's the day
that we're gonna upgrade our wheels and tires. Not only to hopefully be a
little bit better in the dirt, but hopefully it'll look
a little cooler too. I'm Zach, and this is Money Pit. Let's do some wheel and tire stuff. (upbeat music) Huge thanks to eBay Motors
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the description below. Now, let's get back to
shoveling money into this pit. So, when we took this thing to the desert, these are the wheels and
tires that we were driving on. And to be perfectly honest,
they did pretty well. I mean, they gave me a
decent amount of grip, it didn't feel like I
was completely on ice. But I do think that we
can certainly do better than these tires. So, today we're actually gonna take a look at three different tires, because I couldn't make up my dang mind. And then we're gonna go back to the desert and see if they actually are any better. (car engine roaring) And I think they will be. - Hey, I'm gonna keep this quick so you can get back to the video, but there's only a couple days left to get the launch edition of our brand new collectible Stocky. Stocky is a first of its
kind designer collectible. The ultimate gift for a car nerd and an officially licensed Acura product. We're launching this in a bunch of sick different color waves. Phoenix Yellow, Primer Gray, glow in the dark, translucent. Just like everything in Donut, we wouldn't be here without you. We're so stoked to share this with you. Click the link in the description, there's only a couple more
days left in the campaign. Now enjoy your car video. - Let's talk about the reason I bought more than one set of tires. So first off, of course there
are specific rally tires built for doing rally stuff in the gravel. They are hard to find,
they're super expensive. And if you do get a set, well,
if you go to a rally race, they may put you in a
rally tire-only class, which means that you'd be up against only the hardest of heart. And that's not really
what I'm looking for. And I also wanna be a little
bit budgety about this. So, without going with a
rally tire, what do you do? Well, there was a few answers
and no general consensus. Some people say any old tire, some people say truck tire, some people say snow tire. So I bought all three. Let's take a look at them. Firstly, I've got a truck tire. And I put it on the Stock fifteens. So this is gonna be our most budget setup, even though this is actually the most expensive tire I bought. These tires were about $143 bucks a piece for a total of $575 for the set, but they've got a really nice,
deep, luggy tread pattern. They're pretty stiff, and I think they're gonna
bite the dirt pretty well. All right, let's look
at option number two. (upbeat music) First, we talk about the wheel. These are other BMW Stock wheels. These are style sixteens,
they're a 16 inch. So in the dirt, we're not really looking for a super wide wheel and tire setup, and I am also concerned with
making things too heavy. So I'm sticking with small wheels, 16" is as big as we're going. And I think that this
will work out pretty well. These are a little bit stronger of offset and I think they look cool. It's just that standard
five spoke pattern. So now let's talk about the tire. This is our snow tire option. I went with Continentals Viking Contact 7. And these are only $115 bucks a piece and they kind of look like a rally tire. And I do think that that tread pattern would be really good in the dirt. The only problem that
I see with snow tires, especially out here where
we are in California where it's hot, is that snow tires are
made for cold weather and they're kind of soft. So I have a feeling that these might be a little bit too soft, and I'm worried that
they're gonna get chewed up really fast. All right, now for door number three. (upbeat music) Man, I've been prowling
eBay just looking at wheels and just kind of buying
stuff that I really like. And I really liked these. This is an old set of Ronal R9 Pentas and they're white and they're five spoke and they're from the late '80s
and I think they look sweet. They're also a fairly strong
fitment in terms of offset. So, fitment's gonna be a little bit tight, but I think that should look good. They're eight inches wide. So a little bit wider,
but still not too wide. So I think this wheel is hopefully my favorite wheel out of the bunch. Now, let's look at the tire I went with. So this is our any old tire. This is just a Yokohama AVID Ascend and I picked it just based
on the tread pattern. So, Yokohama makes or did make
specific gravel rally tires, and they are pretty sick. Super expensive these
days, but interestingly, the tread pattern on them in
some sort of cousin type of way reminds me of this tread pattern. Just in terms of the two kind of skinnier
blocky patterns here, and then these thicker,
meatier ones on the outside. So, I'm hoping that these
are gonna do pretty good and last a really long time. And at $108 a piece, they're
the cheapest tires here. So I'm interested to see how these tires stack up against the truck
tire and the snow tire. But I think in terms of looks, they're gonna stack up just fine. So, I think we're gonna test fit all these three different wheel
and tire combos on the car and take a look at them and dial in our coil over
fitment from last week, make sure that we've got clearance. And then we'll go back to
the desert and test them. Alrighty, now with that out of the way, we can put on a new setup, just kidding. We're gonna do something first. So, European cars, a lot of them have lug bolts like these, and they're kind of annoying. So we're gonna ditch these
and replace them with studs like a normal car. So we're gonna put a
dab of Loctite on there, and then we're gonna torque them down. These just screw into the threaded hub. So, I'm gonna go around and
install these real quick and that'll make swapping
wheels and tires a lot easier, especially when I'm in the desert, swapping out all these wheels
and tires to test them. Now that we've got studs,
we can use lug nuts. And again, I couldn't really decide, we're having a big debate and I really don't know
which side I land on. Do we go with the standard, black? Definitely safe. You know, nobody's gonna
make fun of me there, or, do I take a little risk
and go with the Neo Chrome? Tough call. Now, I think that the only wheels that can pull off the Neo
Chrome are the Ronals. So we're gonna go with black for now, maybe we'll pull these out at the end. All right, the first
tire we're gonna put on are Cooper Discover, this is kind of like a really
small, light truck tire. Kind of like an all-terrain task. About the closest you can
find in this size of a tire. Now that is a way easier
way to put a wheel on. (drill wheezing) First glance, I mean the
size looks pretty good. A little beefy, a little meaty. But I think it's gonna
clear all the stuff. Let's put it on the ground,
see how she settles. Okay, okay, we've got
about what I expected here. The fitment looks about
the same as before, because it is, it's the same wheels. The offset is the same,
the width is the same. We've just got a slightly
taller tire on it now. But, I don't wanna take this for granted, I'm still gonna get in the car, I wanna cycle the wheel all the way left, all the way right, and make sure I clear everything in here with my steer wheels. Okay, let's see what we've got. Oh, plenty of room. Now we'll check the other direction. Plenty of room up front,
plenty of room out back, plenty of room to travel upwards. I think the fitment of these tires on obviously our stock wheels is great. I think this might be my horse in the race in terms of budget and performance. I think these tires are
possibly gonna be the best ones. Now, let's move on to
the second set of wheels. (gentle music) I don't know. Oh, shoot, it's my lucky day. These wheels didn't come with center caps but the stock ones from the fifteens fit. They're absolutely roached,
but better than nothing. (drill wheezing) I kind of like that. Let's put it on the ground and see how they look down there. Woo baby. That fitment is pretty good. That fitment is so good, I'm almost concerned for
the fitment on the Ronals. 'Cause this is a nice
little poke, tiny poke. I mean, just past flush. But like kind of just
how you want it to look. The tread's still inside of the fender, so we're not gonna sling much. But the Ronals stick out
further than these, I believe. So that may mean that
they're gonna force us to use fender flares or at least roller fenders. Woo, baby. We've got contact. Yep, that's just fender liner. This is plastic, so I will probably, I don't wanna cut a hole in it necessarily if I don't have to. I might have to, but if I can, I'll just hit that with a
heat gun and dent it in, because it seems like it can be dented in and it's barely touching the tire. Let's check the other direction. Beautiful. No problems with the left-hand turn. So the only clearance issue
we have with this setup is a little bit back there. I'm gonna mark that with a
sharpie so I can't forget it and then we'll move on
to set number three. (gentle music) Now, time for the piece of
the resistance, the Ronals. I think these are gonna look
good, I hope they look good. I hope they fit-ish, kinda. These are by far are gonna be
the most aggressive fitment. Okay. Let's see what we've got. (gentle music) I mean, these are about the same fitment as the other BMW wheels. Maybe a touch more aggressive
in the front, but not bad. And I must say I do like
that white five spoke, wow. Wow. These just might work. Let's turn the wheel. Wow. Same kind of areas we were
touching with the BMW wheel and I guess it's probably
about as bad of a contact. But I think we're getting away with it. Let's turn the wheel the other way. I think these are gonna be just fine, I was expecting these to
be a little bit tougher, but they're not, they're great. I just got to trim a little bit or massage the fender liners a little bit and then I think we're good. Maybe also a slight
rolling of the fenders, you know, just to be safe. But I think these
puppies are ready to rip. So, now that we've talked
about our tire options and looked at them on the car, there's really only one thing left to do and that's to get our asses
back out in the desert. (upbeat music) And we're back in the
desert to do some testing. And we're gonna be testing more than one thing at once today, 'cause well, let's face it, we've done a handful of things to the car since we were last in the desert. We went from an automatic
to a manual transmission. We did some coil overs, but ultimately we're here
today to test out some tires. We've got three different
wheel and tire setups. Get outta here.
(insect buzzing) We've got three different
wheel and tire setups. You son of a (beep). I think there's a family of flies living in my hair at this point. So we've got three different
wheel and tire setups that we're gonna be testing. First, we're gonna try
our 40 to zero stop times. Then our zero to 60 foot go times. And then we're gonna do three laps of our little made up
track on each set of tires, to find out which one of
these tires is the best at doing dirt stuff. So the first set's already on the car. Let's do a little 40 to zero. (upbeat music) - All right, Adam, let's see
how I did on the breaking. Give me some data. Thank you, sir. Okay, 40 miles an hour
to zero miles an hour. First time out we had 105 feet. Woo, okay, all right. Oh wow, interesting, interesting. So the Yokohamas were the best at 87 feet. The Coopers came in
second place at 97 feet and the Continentals third place, a distant third place to that. I'm a little surprised, I guess. I guess those Yokos are
better than expected. All right, now let's go
see how this thing does in terms of acceleration,
zero to 60 foot times. (upbeat music) (car engine roaring) Okay, mow let's find out how I did in terms of acceleration, some zero to 60 foot data. Adam, thank you, sir. Oh, what the hell? The Yokohama wins again. Second place goes to the snow tire and third place to the truck tire. Jesus, I'm getting destroyed. I'm pretty impressed with Yokohama though. Just a regular street tire. Actually, you know what? Okay, before we go any further, now I don't wanna back pedal too hard. I know I said that my dog in
this race was the truck tires, but they were the most expensive tire, so I would be thrilled if the best tire turned out to be the cheapest, which I think was the Yokohama. It was at least significantly
cheaper than the truck tire. That makes this cheaper and I'm all for it. So now that we've got this data, let's find out the real important stuff. Let's do a few laps. We're gonna do three
laps a piece on each tire and however well I drive
is the laps that we get. We're only doing three
laps per tire setup, and then we'll find out which
tire sets the best time. It's kind of starting to seem
like it might be the Yokohama. (upbeat music) No traction off the the line, to be expected. Ah, yes. Ooh, this looks like it's in
way worse shape than before. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's better. Where's my e-brake, damn. Way harder to get to the e-brake
in this driving position, which is not good. Yeah, e-brake uses, much harder. You got to go looking for it early. Ooh, basic (indistinct) stop there. There's no smell out here. (indistinct) Okay, it's time for the
most important data of all, the lap times, Adam. All right. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay, well, first off, the news is good, we did shave a lot of
seconds off our time. I think we were doing a 1:34 last time and our slowest time was a 1:27.9. Now these are all averages
for the different tires, but the slowest tires,
the Yokohama, (laughs) but the fastest tire is
the snow tire, good Lord. Then the middle tire is the truck tire. Now honestly, none of this
is really what I expected, but they're all within a
couple seconds of each other. And the truth is I made
a bunch of mistakes. But here's something
that I've been wondering. Let's take a look and see
how well these tires held up, because I've been destroying them amongst a lot of rocks today. So I have to imagine these
puppies are pretty chewed up and that comes into play. Snow tire might be the fastest tire, but if it's completely
destroyed after just three laps, well, what good is it? So let's take a look. I've got three of the rear
tires here, one of each, and let's see who's fared the best. First off, look at the Yokohama. I mean, it's chewed up, it's not quite as fresh as it once was. These are all brand new tires today, but it doesn't look terrible, that definitely has plenty more laps in it before it's useless. Then we've got the Cooper
here, the truck tire. This definitely fared the best in terms of how well it
held up to the abuse. There's a lot of life left in this. This tread is really deep as well, so you can chunk it for a
while before it's useless. So these, I think probably
are the toughest tires we tested today. Now we've got the snow tire. Which looks like it basically is melted. Doesn't look great. I mean, there's still some tread there, but the sites have been
completely torn apart. I mean, this tire is, is definitely beat up and would probably be useless
far before those ones were. So that's something to take
into consideration too. And now granted, this is a look at using these kinds of tires in the desert. It's a hundred degrees out here today. If you're on mud or hell even snow, snow tire's probably the way to go. But really I would say
at the end of the day, what I think is, it doesn't
really matter too much. Run whatever tire you
got, whatever you can get, whatever is cheap, just get
out and do some driving. And that's where you'll
really pick up the most time on a lap. So I'm pretty happy with
how all these tires did. And I think the most important thing is to get out here and destroy something. What do you think about that? Seat time, who'd have thought. So with that said, I think this has been a
successful day in the desert. I hope you guys had fun
watching us tear up some tires and make a bunch of clouds of dust. If you did go follow me
on Instagram @zachjobe and follow Donut @donutmedia. And I'll see you guys next Wednesday. - [Adam] Tell them to hit the like button. - Oh yeah, hit the like button, smash that like button and we'll see you next Wednesday.
No idea of what these guys are about. I don't think they know either. Their test techniques were totally bogus so they learned nothing. I think they're only about making a lot of videos and spending ebay's money.
I did kinda like their choices in candidate tires. But they might as well have used a coin flip to get their results. You want to see a YouTuber who takes testing seriously, check out Project Farm. No rally tires though.
BTW @ Funny-Patient3360 -- as it happens I bought my last set of gravel rally tires from ebay. Federals....from a distributor. But yeah, not real common.
I liked when he said he didn’t buy gravel tires to keep cost down, then bought 3 sets of tires….
The real answer was that eBay funded this and had no gravel tires for sale in the US
They are in southern CA. I commented on you tube that they need to bring the BMW to our local Rallycross or the only local stage rally this year at the end of this month
I find the Donut Media stuff fun to watch but they are kinda cheesing on this "rally" build.