I have a IS350 F-Sport and i was wondering if 17" wheels fit over the front brakes. Anyone have an idea?

 

If I may ask, what's the reasoning behind potentially changing the factory 18" to 17" wheels?

 

i'm building a set of track wheels for the car and so far the wheels that i'm looking at has the width that i was looking for but it's only at 17".

 

lexus does produce a 17" wheel for the base model IS, although i'm not sure that it will cover your brakes. if you want to keep it oem, you might try looking into 17" wheels that other models use, namely the ES.

if you want to go aftermarket, i am sure there are a ton of wheels that will meet your specs.

good luck!

 

i actually found an aftermarket one with the specs that i was looking for. just wanted to know if it will clear the brakes...

 

It depends on the wheel style and offset. I have a 200T with the bigger 350 brakes you have and since I don't have an F Sport mine came with the 17" wheels. I changed to 19" wheels and they didn't clear the brakes without spacers because I didn't get a low enough offset

 

thank you very much for your input! The design and spec of the wheel that i have in mind will clear the bigger caliper. i just wanted to make sure that the diameter will not be an issue. that helped a lot! thanks a bunch!

 

Yup, the 2017 IS 200T base wheels will fit.

It's good to downgrade to 17" since the winter tires cost less

 

are F sport and base brake caliper/rotors the same or different? i was just reading the other thread that made it seem like the only difference is the brake pad compound.

 

On the 2017 models, all models (Base & F Sport) have the same brakes.

 

If you don't live in California, it's hard to imagine how bad our roads are.
When I changed my wheels, I went with a -1 approach on my '14 IS350 F Sport. I will be the first to admit that the staggered 17s don't look as good as the 18s did, but between the wheels and tires I saved 11lbs a corner. The steering seems to turn in a bit quicker, and potholes don't make a jarring impact like they used to with the heavy cast 18s.
I went with Konig spin-cast wheels and Pilot super sports. HUUUUGE upgrade in tires along with the lighter wheels.
If your roads are bad, it's way better that repairing bent wheels.

 

When you say "brakes," are you including pads? Lexus offers low friction and high friction pads for the "big" IS brakes. I'd imagine the low friction pads come w/ the base IS while F-Sport gets high friction.

Also Canada tends to get different equipment sometimes so another consideration.

 

Sometimes I dream of seeing how this car would drive with light wheels. Our wheels (18" F sport) are extremely heavy @ 28 lbs.

But manufacturers tend to give their cars heavy wheels so they're durable. Less warranty claims for people hitting curbs and stuff.

 

No it's because heavy cast wheels are cheap, that's why OEMs use them.
Losing 44lbs of unsprung weight, and changing to ceramic brake pads have eliminated two of my bigger pet peeves with this car.

 

They're not "cheap," but they're also not as expensive as those 3 piece r1cer wheels. They're also not the cheapest. Somewhere in the middle. (Also not all factory wheels are cast. And not all cast wheels are heavy)

Factory wheels on a car like this are actually highly designed, highly engineered. Most OE wheels are because they have to meet a TON of safety standards. One is designed deformation in a crash.

And your use of the term "OEMs" is technically incorrect. OEMs are the manufacturers car manufacturers source their wheels from. So technically OEMs aren't using anything. They're the ones being used. =p