What's this J level you speak of?

I'm placing my order for the FMU kit today and found a good set of 18" OEM rims to use on craigslist for nearly free. Anyone have experience with the 285/60r18 wheels? Will that require a spacer or work fine with the lift kit?

If it’s a factory BMW 18” wheel off of another E53 you shouldn’t have any issue with the wheel itself, it will all be in the tire you install on those wheels. And it they’re 18x8.5s I wouldn’t expect any fitment issues unless you try to squeeze a 35” tire on there or something crazy.

Bolt a “naked” wheel on to make sure hub centric fits and crank full left and full right. I wouldn’t expect any issues or any need for a spacer, unless you want the tire flush with the wheel lips - and then you’ll need the tire installed to measure the proper spacer.

What wheels did you get?


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Yes, it's a factory 18x8.5 w/ 48mm offset. I'm leaning towards the 285 60 r18 General Grabber XT that was reviewed earlier in the post. I was impressed with the lack of road noise.
Attachment 79267

Yes, those are original factory mounted Michelins with a date code of 2001

Thanks. I put all of that info together and then realized that I probably wasn't the only person who might find it useful. Plus I'm new here and its always good to contribute to the collective knowledge of the group when you can.

I chose TEMA over J Level for two reasons:

(1) I was actually looking for an 1" lift. I think that is all that I need to eliminate the tire rub on the top of the tire and the fender. TEMA offered a 30mm/1.2" kit while the J-Level kit was 52mm/2", so the TEMA 30mm was closer to the 1" that I was looking for.

(2) The second reason was price. The TEMA kit was $147 while the 2" J-Level was ~$600. As discussed above, there are differences in the kits that justify the difference in price but the goal of this build is to create a list of affordable components to create a basic X5 Overland and a $600 lift didn't seem compatible with that concept.

The 265/60/18 should fit fine and you shouldn't need any lift.

With an OEM wheel, the tire will fit inside the fender so you shouldn't have to worry about fender rub at the top of the tire over large bumps like I experience (because my tire sticks out of the fender due to the 0mm offset wheel).

I purposefully wanted the tire to stick out for that aggressive off road look and that means that I need a small lift to make that work.

The X5 is on my 4-post lift and I'm ready to start the TEMA install. I should have time to complete it over the next 5 days (and maybe work on the flares) since I am on Day 9 of a 14-day Covid quarantine. I was exposed to someone who tested positive and have been in quarantine since I was notified. No symptoms but I had a Covid Test today to see where things stand. All of my Thanksgiving plans have been cancelled so I won't have much else to do but work on the X5 alone in my workshop!

Based on all the data here you may want to try that 286/60R18 before you buy them, seems the 265/60R18 is a safe bet, I don't know if the 285 would put too much rubber in there. I think the post just above this one calls out those notes :thumbup:

Does FMU have a lead time on the kits right now? Or do they carry them in stock?

285/60/18 would be a 31.5" tire so you should be fine height wise. Sounds like ~31" is the max before a lift is necessary. Not sure if you'll need spacers though, and 285 is a wide tire on 8.5" wheels.

thstone, keep us posted on the install!

I didn't see this example posted yet, from another thread.

"265/70/17 blizzaks and they fit just fine"

That's a 31.6" tire. Suspension looks stock.

https://i.imgur.com/VNTlClu.jpg

FMU is doing a production run and is taking orders right now. There's an advance purchase group buy for $799 (prices have gone up). If you call them today you can still get into the advance buy and probably have them in a few weeks.

For the Rubicon crowd :-) The X5 from FMU features in this video.
 

Hey guys, FWIW, I watch LegitStreetCars Youtube channel sometimes as he is thorough (MB tech) and the videos are detailed (he refurbed a 335i recently). This is a video about an AMG ML55 but the FMU X5 features and may appear in later vids as well. The gent from LegitStreetCars is building the AMG for a rally and it seems that the X5 may feature there as well. Hope this is something useful for this thread :)


Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWD67quZyds&t=919s