Ah, the question that's been plaguing man since the beginning of time. Do I look as badass as possible, or do I worry about performance and fuel mileage. This is a super personal question and answer. I already have a truck that gets 13 mpg in the city, so the BS OBX I have on order is really for a better DD and for getting around the tight trails at our lake house looking for fishing holes and climbing spots (at least until my daughter claims it in 18 months). I really, really love the look of @delm 's rig. It is probably the coolest looking BS on here IMHO. That said, I just couldn't justify the mileage hit , which is why I did not buy a full sized Bronco, or a BS BL for that matter. Although money is not really an issue here for me, I just feel a bit guilty burning 13 mpg at $5 a gallon for my diesel truck.
Adding unsprung weight—weight that isn't supported by the springs—has many negative implications. The more weight you add the greater the effects. More weight requires more power to spin up, thus you lose acceleration. More weight makes it harder for the dampers (shock absorbers) to keep the tire in contact with the road when you hit a bump, and when the tire doesn't have good contact with the road you lose traction, thus your braking and cornering performance at highway speeds (where bumps impart more momentum to the unsprung weight) may suffer. More weight negatively affects how the spring and shock respond to bumps in the road, thus your ride quality may suffer. More weight means all your suspension components will experience greater stress, which will almost certainly affect service life.
i definitely didn’t take anything you’ve said as “shade!” Appreciate the comments and where you are coming from. And even if you had actually thrown shade, I still wouldn’t have taken offense. This Bronco Sport came out exactly how I’d hoped it would. I’m really happy with it and I totally understand that it’s not for everyone. Not everyone will like what I’ve done and to that I say, “Thank God.” Would be pretty darn boring around here if we all thought the same and had the same likes and dislikes.
This is in my front passenger tire. You can see the cut here. There is a matching cut on the driver's side. You have to get down low and look up to see it. Have a similar, smaller cut in the plastic directly behind the tire.
Very good looking nice job , I have 245/70R17 and this will be my next missionMy little project did not go as plug-and-play as I'd hoped, but it was pretty darn close.
I had good reason to believe that with the right lift, and with the right off-set wheels, that we could, indeed, fit 255/70/17 wheels onto the Bronco Sport (Badlands), despite the conventional wisdom here on this forum.
Specifically, conventional wisdom holds that this tire is too large to get to work without cutting metal, and more specifically, without cutting into the pinch weld of the vehicle, which would be dangerous and foolish to do.
I can definitively state that this is not the case.
Conventional wisdom also claims that this size tire would be far to heavy for the BS. I can also definitively state that this is not the case...at least for the Badlands. I probably wouldn't go there with the 1.5L engine.
Like I said - this was not completely plug and play.
So how did I get here?
I went with the fordrangerlifts.com 1.75" lift kit specifically marketed for the Badlands & First Edition.
I then went with the Fuel Zephyr wheels with 25mm offsets.
Finally, there was some trimming of plastic. No cutting into metal at all.
The ride is awesome. Plenty of power, and I love the elevated view. I've got some Air Design fender flairs enroute to finish up the look.
Here are the "Before" and "After" pics:
A couple more pictures of the wheel wells:
Front:
Back:
