bad_monkey

Recently trial fitted the supreme BBS RS wheels I received from RitzBlitz - who is, incidentally, a really good guy to deal with and true to his word.

The car is sitting really high because I've turfed out a lot weight lately. Currently has no seats in it at all. No sound deadening / factory padding, front seats, rear seats, spare, jack, ac, power steering, power aerial, rear hatch motor, or stereo at the moment. Suddenly looks like a moon rover. BOING!

However, with these wide wheels, it looks like I'll need to bring the front guard out a touch if I do settle the car down a bit. Or run a bit too much camber to pass inspection, which won't help my tyre wear. Until I undo it.

At the rear, the arches just need a little persuasion to come out and play, and I'm going to drop the eccentrics down and see where they sit. Is there anything you can do to massage this adjustment a bit further? I don't want to tear into torsion bars if I don't have to yet, but there's miles to go before the bump stops.

At the front, I'm going to need to come out about 18mm at the top, which I think should be manageable with a roller, or failing that - hammer and dolly.

Flames and helpful suggestions welcome, but if you're flaming, try to be funny at least.

Cyberpunky

Those rims look awesome. I have simmons copies of those on one of my other cars.
What size are they ?

67King

Before you get too far ahead of yourself, keep in mind that you have positive camber right now since the car is sitting so high. When you get it back to normal ride height, it'll go back to zero or slightly negative, which will help your clearance.

If, however, you still need more clearance, use a baseball bat. And use a heat gun on your paint before you do. If you aren't familiar with the method, just do a search. I've done it a few times with pretty decent resutls. The rears of the 944's are really, really tough, though.

dirtyTurbo

...what are you gunna do with the old wheels?

bad_monkey

@cyberpunky 16x9j up front 16x10j in the rear with no spacers at all.

@67king Good point on the camber - my understanding is that the camber won't change if I drop the eccentrics in the rear though? But you are right - I don't want to rush into changing alignment just yet. The front is the big question. I think I might try Kokeln raised camber plates to retain stock travel.

@ihaza944t Selling them. They are Borbet cup replicas with potenza re001's. I have spacers for early offset too. But I'm going to try selling locally first.

*bj*

Awesome, love the wheels.

If you are going to go for a low/flush fitment (You will only get half an inch out of the eccentrics - how low do you want to go?), I think you will need to end up doing suspension - including torsion bars. If you don't you will get lots of rubbing during cornering and over bumps, and eventually the guards will get destroyed. I would recommend a thinner tyre as well, but it looks like those ones are brand new.

bad_monkey

It's going to be 2" lower - but need to check with a few kg's added back in. Half an inch is not likely to cut it -I thought the eccentrics could give me an inch, but I'll need to do bars. There's acres of room. I want to go as low possible without compromising ride - e.g not riding on the stops around corners or crap like that. At the moment, I could drop 2.5 inches at least and the tyre would just be tucked.

Have done a lot of reading today and I think I have an understanding of guard rolling and flaring. I will need to pull/stretch as well as rolling in order to get a good fit without excess rubbing.

The tyres are 225/245 - as narrow as I want to go on a 9/10 rim combo.

bad_monkey

The more I think about it, first I'm going to load the car up with a full weight inc passenger and full tank of fuel - and measure the height at the top of arch all round. That will tell me how much to lower it.

I'll also roll the fenders the old fashioned way - heat the paint, then hammer with a bag of sand to absorb the blow. See where that sits once I've dropped it before considering pulling/flaring the arches to give space for bumps.

Techno Duck

Borrowed a fender roller from my friend. The 944 quarters are a pain because the metal is so damn thick. I rolled the fenders on my friends WRX and it was cake in comparison to my car.



The area inbetween the tape marks shows where you will get 99% of your rubbing.

bad_monkey

Yeah, the fronts worked out just fine, barring a few small chips I'll need to spray over. Stretched out so much they don't look like they were ever a problem. Used a baseball bat, and a wedge to move the pivot point, and worked slowly. Believe it or not, once the lip is rolled you can pull them with your bare hands. I can anyhow. A few mm here and there, and the wheel is inside the guard at the top. Might need to go to a flat roll on the lip later. I broke my rubber mallet

The rears are serious business. As technoduck points out they are much harder. I'm going to heat the arches next weekend, then hammer the inner lip flat in a few passes. Then try a technique I saw that used a jack with a couple of piece of ply to spread the load.

Could get a guard roller and mod it, but seems like gentle, slow, brute force and ignorance does the trick.

Next thread I post might be how to cover chips with a custom colored rattle can....

azbanks

I had to use a 5 lb hammer to roll my rears. The neighbors all think I'm nuts.
What's the big deal, doesn't everyone take a 5 lb hammer to the body work of their Porsche???

Dougs951

I used an aluminum baseball bat to roll mine...

pontifex4

Just on the off chance that anyone who is reading this thinks that the hammer and baseball bats mentioned above are used in the same way, they aren't:

Hammers are used to strike the inside of the rear arch lip up and toward the outside of the car while someone braces against the fender with a wood block. You can't do this without removing the wheel.

Baseball bats are used to roll along that same lip on the fender, but while sandwiched against the tire.

All of this to say: you never need to swing the bat. If you do, you're doing it wrong.

bad_monkey

^^ what he said. All in all there was some of everything required in my case.

1. Big hammer in hand + ear protectors on, wheel off, bang the lip flat.

2. Baseball bat to gently roll the lower portions of the lip, using the wheel as a roller.

3. I actually also used a steel pipe wrapped in several layers of cloth to repeat stage 2.

4. Wheel off, factory jack with base on plywood sheet in the wheel arch, the top of the jack on thin aluminium sheet to form a curve, behind the arch at the top. Gently, wind the jack pressure on by hand - to coax the arches outward and form a slight flare. Do this slowly, and move the jack round. If you go two far too soon it will be uneven.

5. A bit more camber can't hurt too.

Front arches are easy in comparison - you can pull them with the bat only, or by hand if you're brave.

elzergone

Those wheels are absolutely fantastic. Jealous.