333pg333

I know this has been beaten around for some years and I have done some searching, but I wanted opinions as much as price or vendors. I want to be able to fit some larger than 300's out back and that means getting some work done. I have only seen one car that has it done in metal and that is Chris White's white one which from the pic's looks very well done. That may not be an option as that would take some seriously good body shop I'm guessing to pull that off and we don't have so many of them down here. So it will probably be in f/g or c/f. The problem is that you hear of issues with the finish of fibre panels, that they're good 20 footers. I would appreciate any opinions whether based on direct experience or just basic knowledge of those materials. Any photos are good too. If you do a search of a thread (" fikse fm5 17x12 wheels") and look for a pic scanned by Mike Markota you will see the sort of look I'd like. Sorry I tried to re-scan image but it wouldn't upload it as it was too big. Don't know how Mike loaded it then? Oh, and how do you grab a link to a former thread as I would have done that instead of asking for you to search. Sorry.
Thanks,
Patrick

SoloRacer

That picture by Mike looks pretty nice. I like the ones on my 968 as well - keeps in tradition with the GT2's of 911 fame. Mine came from Kelly Moss Racing but if I remember right Guns951 had similar ones on his car that came from somewhere else. Might be too "take it to the track" looking for you if you are a fan of the ones that Mike showed.

TRWright

I have seen two 951's that used the fiberglass kit (GT racing as I recall). Looked like **** from anything less than 90 feet away.

TRWright

Solo, I want to make love to that 968. . .

Do you want a 996 cab? lol

Loquat15

I think that looks pretty neat, however... yes, however... i don't like the "bolted on" kind of look. RX-8's are weenie cars with weenie engines that are weenie-less. But anyways, i'd prefer a more "one piece" look, maybe fiberglass/polyurethane that's blended in to the steel body.

But either way, as long as you fit some massive tires in there... :-)

SoloRacer

Huh? Who said anything about RX-8's? The yellow car is a Porsche 968. What's with all the engine trash talk? Check out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq8LLAs6npY

He eventually makes the pass....and he's still normally aspirated. Not bad for a weenie engine I guess......

SoloRacer

I wouldn't mind a 996 cab.....but I won't give up the Motec for it.

HansB

I have just done a widebody conversion on my 951, this is not a project for the faint of heart.

We started out with GT racing stuff.

The rear fit was horrible, The panels where concave where they should have been convex, very thick, so impossible to form. No way you could get this to fit.

I have had it redone completely by a local Dutch vendor. He started with a copy of an original undamaged 944 (not easy to find btw). made a very thin and soft copy of the gtracing stuff, so it could be formed, sawed of the wide body part, glued it to the original panel, put on filler, sanded, etc, made a mold and finally made a new panel.

The result is actually quite good. Here it is fitted with 18x305 slicks





The front fenders where a reasonable fit, I actually do not like the shape of the arch around the wheels very much, but it is not bad enough to redo it. There is another problem though, the front bumper shell and splitter are not available in a wide body version, as you can see in the pictures they are to narrow, and they end up in the middle of the wheel in stead of covering this completely.

Here the tires fitted are 18x285's , but on 1,25 inch longer A-arms.

I will have a new bumper shell and splitter made to resolve this.

Needless to say by now it is a $$$ (or rather a €€€ ) project.

A cheaper solution is to fit a set of 911 GT2 extensions to the fenders, as in this picture. A matter of taste if you like this, but defintly a lot cheaper



more pictures can be found here

333pg333

Thanks guys for posting. Hans that sounds like a bit of a nightmare. We now have 2 cars to deal with. One road, one track. So the bolt on appearance for the track car is probably fine. For my road car I think I want something a bit cleaner looking. I may even be able to use the panels off the new S2 that we will use to make into a track car and get them made larger by some old artisan of bodyworks somewhere. I like the idea of a single line and metal for the road car in my avatar.
I have had a couple of emails back and forth with this company:
http://allporscheracing.com/WBody.html who I believe were originators of the GT molds and have a much better fit and finish. He said that the wide body rear bumper cover wasn't suited to track cars though as it acts like a parachute of sorts but some of the pics look encouraging. I like the black one particularly. Anyone know or seen any of these in the flesh (so to speak)?
Patrick
PS Hans what's with your exhaust pipe angle? Is that to help with db readings?

HansB

Offcourse, that can be done. Not cheap though, I guess about 40 hours of work to get that in a neat way. You need to find an old man with a hobby! I could provide you with more pictures if you needed an example.

Yes, it is, it is not just angle, it is a bend with small pipes fitted inside. Reduces sound by 4-6 dB without increasing backpressure.

333pg333

1: Yes please.
2: Really? Wow that sounds unlikely upon it's description but I'm sure you are not the first to use it therefore it's a proven system. Nice one.
Did you check out that link for the other widebody kit providor? Also aren't there all those Strosek etc Euro makers of kits for our cars that you could have selected. It sounds like you went through an ordeal to make yours work. Having said that I always love seeing your cars. I like the paintjobs too.

HansB

Offcourse, we try the nearer suppliers first. We have stuff from PEFA in Germany (Front panel, rear bumper) but there really is no wb kit available.

The guys that have made mine offcourse now sell it, but the EUR USD ratio would not make it an attractive product for the US. The GT2 kit could be an option, cheap light and not very akward to ship.

Yes, some of the stuff looks neat, but really close-up, preferably of the unpainted product would be needed to really judge the quality

DFASTEST951

If I were to get a widebody, I'd get the ones Solo has, hands down. The point of the wide body is for wider more agressive wheels. Those flares on that 968 make me want...a 968. Just so I can put on those flares. Best 968 I've ever seen. Hats off Solo.

By the way, can you even get those anywhere?

Loquat15

I know that the yellow car is a 968... look at the fenders on that car and then look at an rx-8... both have that bolted on look that i don't like.

Have you ever driven an rx-8? they are rather gutless. Sure, rotary engines can be fast and everything, but unmodified... oh boy.

333pg333

Hans, I may be interested in the kit that your vendor now sells. In fact does he sell both the smooth one and the bolt-on one? Can you give me an idea of prices? PM me if you like, but I'm sure that there's a few people on here who would also be curious. Oh and I'm waaaay down here in Australia...so the $$$ equation is probably worse. lol.

Joe, I also like the bolt on look for that old school 934/5 look and we may consider it for our upcoming playtime project (trackrat) but from all the fibreglass and bolt on stuff I've seen over the years, it always degrades and ripples and the paint delaminates etc...Think of the old 930's and their lovely metal flared wheel arches. That's what I would most like for my road car or that quality of bodywork.

Loquat, I think Solo has a foot in more than 1 camp and if you looked at the Youtube link you would have seen a very action packed rotor wielding racecar. What a handful that was! Lots of fun though. They must have some weight concessions compared to the Porsche it was racing but it must be something to rev an engine out to 14.000rpm or whatever those whirling dervishes do!!!