I know newbie has loads of questions here we go again.

The 13" rims look so small and so far away from the wheel arches that I was wondering what size wheels and tyres would fit without fouling on suspension travel or lock to lock steering.
I do realise that going bigger wheel and tyre diameter will have an adverse affect on the acceleration and the speedo will need recolibrating.

Or can the suspension be lowered to bring it to a more respectable ratio.
I know absolutely nothing about metro's or their suspension systems so this will be a learning excersise from start to finish.

If you want to make the suspension "sportier", then you could go to Talon Sportscars, who can make each of the hydrogas units individual, which gives a better feel to the car. I would get the pressures checked out, to make sure that the car hasn't been pumped up too high.

I'm sure that I have seen MGF wheels on a K3, which would be 15" I think. But I don't know what size the tyres were.

I'm sure mine's got 14's on. I'll wander to garage in a while & check.

I'll check the ground clearence over the next few days just to see if it's been pumped up. I don't know what the handling is going to be like as it's still off the road, however I doubt that the wife will be giving it full beans anywhere.
I have just looked on evilbay and found a set of MGF/MGTF 16" wheels but in the blurb the seller says that they only fit the MGF or TF models and that the likes of TSW don't do any after market wheels that fit the MGF pcd. If as I suspect I have got Metro hubs front and back will the MGF wheels fit the hubs? Obviously I will need to look into offsets but knowing if they are the same pcd would be a start.

I'm almost 100% that the modern metro and MGF and TF all have the same PCD 95.25mm. It is the same as the TR7 and some other cars too. When I was going to fit the rear of the TF into the back of my coupe, I fitted metro and TR7 wheels into it, as long as the arches clear and the offset is correct for your car, then I can't see a bad thing about bigger wheels. All will happen is that you will have more clearance around your brakes!

You'd have to have low profile though, so it might become more expensive!

I think they always say that it won't fit anything else on Flea Bay because they are worried someone try them and they won't fit and give negative feedback.

Find a friendly MGF owner and see if you can try a wheel to see what the fit is like!

OK my mistake - they are 13's. The wheels are Team Dynamics.

As for metro / MGF wheels Dudley at Talon might help, they're putting MGF engines in Rover 100's

http://www.talonsportscars.com/

Oh yes - ride hight.

Look under the car (under the drivers seat) there's an 'airofoil'ish shape, from memory it should be 100 or 110 mm at the lowest point

Hi lyndiloo, I'm a newbie here myself. I've read the replies to your posts with interest. I'm looking for a K3 myself.

Worth bearing in mind that bigger wheels with low profile tyres will give more unsprung weight (and more weight overall) - great as a styling statement but can give a harsher ride too.

Allen7, I realise there will be some disadvantages if just adding bigger wheels but with some further adjustmets I believe that the gains would be better, the distance between the top of the tyre and the bottom of the wheel arch makes it look a little unusual in my opinion. I personally like the tyres to be reasonably close to the arch without touching on full bounce and steering lock, especially on anything that looks or is sporty. As I said earlier I will take a few measurements at the weekend and see if it's at the correct ride hieght and work from there.
Good luck in your search, I know I have only had the vehicle for a very short period and only driven it a few miles around my local lanes but it appears very easy to work on. I have currently removed the seats, centre console, underlay (completely knackard), and both front and rear bodywork. The reason for the bodywork is to repair the mounting points as they are a bit flimsy and was causing some of the banging that occoured when on some dodgey roads (easy repair).
I would also say that I am impressed with the bodywork apart from the water leaks, which again I don't think will be a major issue once I get going. (I did see a link to someone who had the same issues on handbrake and water leaks but the link was dead and I haven't yet found out who he is).
One other thing to look for is if the K3 has a cable or hydraulic clutch system, mines got the cable and it is fairly stiff, however Talon do a conversion to hydraulic, not cheap but will be on my shopping list at sometime in the future.
Malcolm, thanks for the info I know where you mean on the underside so will measure at the weekend and see what it is. Cheers.

Clutch - Yes if You sit in trafic You end up with left leg about twice as strong as the right.

When Terry bult his Libra he used a 'pull' slave cylinder from Rally Spares, I'm sure it was written up in the club news letter, it avoids trying to remove the actuation lever from the top of the cluch mechanism - which is reputedly a pig of a job with the engine in place

Well the wife and daughter have been using the car for a few weeks now and I have had the occassional blast.
The measurement from the "airofoil" under the car to the ground is 110mm however the distance from the top of the tyre to the wheel arch is 100mm. It just looks like a kit car and not a designed finished vehicle. I'm now thinking that larger wheels will need to be employed to get it to look right. If I go larger diameter I will then have to lower the suspension otherwise it will look high of the ground. Don't thing 14" wheels will be enough either so will start looking at 15" wheels and see if I can borrow one to trial fit.
What have others done?

I'm fairly sure that I have seen K3s with MGF wheels on. That would be the place I would start looking at first. I think they had 15" before they went for bigger wheels.

Something like these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-X-MGF-WHEELS-TY ... dZViewItem

I'd check to see if they fit properly first though!

Well the 15's would mean I still had 75mm between the top of the tyre and the bottom of the wheel arch so maybe even bigger will be required. I don't want to reduce the ride height lower than the 110mm that it is at the moment as we have loads of speed humps around my area and we can currently get over them (driving slowly, use speed and the cooling pipes hit the hump). The wheels on it at the moment are original metro items I believe (and have the centre missing). The MG ones look good but I think I will have to see a friendly wheel supplier and see if I can work out a combination from them (this could take sometime).
I will take a photo at the weekend if I get time and maybe it will illustrate my thoughts better.

Initially I found it tricky to get the ride height correct on my K3. The rear was far too high when the front tyres were just clear of the arches. In this condition the rear wheels had positive camber and with the hydragas so hard the rear would skip around over manholes. The solution for me was to add 14mm to the front trumpet which allowed me to lower the back by about 60mm whilst retaining working clearances at the front. We also found a bit of air in it which is not good for body control (apply vacuum to remove air). I don't have a problem with speed bumps and when checked during the summer had 110mm under the aerofoil.

Interlinked hydragas is a bit strange, and mine varies from level to slightly nose up, it also goes up and down with the temperature by 19mm (as does a Metro). I'm still playing with tyre pressures but 22F 26R seems to be a good starting point. I also run 185/60 R13s as these fill the arches better, and give a better ride.

Hydragas is strange since high pressure gives high ride height and a firm ride, low pressure means low ride height and soft ride. So I would set the hydragas pressure correctly first, then work out what needs to be added or removed from the trumpets to set the ride height, where 1mm at the trumpet gives about 3 mm extra ride height. Remember to allow for ambient temperature though!

With the back sat down nicely it looks like the car that Mr Oakes intended, with the heavily flared wheelarches making sense!

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the information it will be very useful for the future, I am currently rebuilding the daughters kit car so the K3 is been used as is at the moment, however I will need to do something as it still looks wrong and also I went out in the rain the other night gave it a little more than I should have on a roundabout and ended up the otherway round without much effort. (I was playing about so under normal driving it would have been ok or recoverable).

I have been looking at different wheels and have narrowed it down to a pair of 15's with 195x50 tyres for the front and 16's with 225x50 for the rear, I need to do a bit more investigation for the front to see if they would foul on anything but the rears should be ok with the right offset of rim or small spacers. plus doing some suspension mods to get the camber altered, even the front looks to be a little bit positive and the rears look to be neutral, however that is by eye only at the moment so not that accurate.