Wow. Yes, those wheels look great! I may have to consider those for my red S4 someday.

 

What size / brand / model tires are you running?

OB owners need to keep in mind "we" have less room up front due to longer control arms. My et52 wheels damaged both of the front fenders on my 79.

et56 wheels up front are almost too tight on my 79 (lowered) there is no way I could run an et47 wheel on either of my cars.
I am also curious to know how the handling is effected with those. Going from et52 to et56 was a very noticeable improvment on how the car tracked and handled.

They do look cool.

 

The front wheels are 19 X 8.5 47mm offset, tires are 235/35
Back are 19 X 10 56mm offset , tires are 275/30
I'm using Kuhmo Ecsta SPT tires. The car has never been on a track but for everyday driving the handling and ride are much improved.

 

Enzo - What size tire were you running when you got the fender damage? I just picked up a set of staggered twists; the fronts are 18x8, ET50. I was thinking I'd be fine with 225/40? Its a 1982.

 

225 / something - 17

On a stock OB et50 should be ok, might be tight cornering. My 79 is lowered so that exaggerates things a bit. On my 81 it's close, but I never damaged anything. I was just using that as an example that much more than et50 (or less depending on how you look at it) may not work so well on an OB.

 

Thanks for the info Enzo. I'll play it by ear and maybe roll the fenders if need be.

 

I went a step further with my 79 and had the fender lip ground off before having them painted.

 

Guys, sorry to bring this back up again. This offset thing just is not sinking in! I have seen some other wheels for sale (the heater works now) the measurements are;

5 Bolt 130mm PCD130
Front 18" x 8" with 49mm offset and 6.5" backspace
Rear 18" x 9.5" with 52mm offset and 7.5" Backspace

What do you think?

Regards

Mark

 

Hey Mark,


Try this link, it's to Andrew's calculator. I don't know about this stuff, but it should help.

https://rennlist.com/forums/showpost...7&postcount=56

 

It's really easy - stock is et65 Anything lower will cause the wheel to move further out.

All factors being equal, an et45 wheel will stick out 20mm further than an et65 wheel. That is 3/4 of an inch. To some that may not seam like a lot, change the toe of your next alignment by 3/4 of an inch, see what happens.

This is not only for looks but how the car drives as well. A lot of people "upgrade" from the stock 16" wheel with crappy tires (not many good tires in those sizes) to an 18" or 19" with a less than perfect offset, with new high performance tires, and claim the car handles "better".

I've had many different wheels with different offsets on my 928's. The closer I can get to stock the better the car tracks down the road.

Which is why a lot of people are buying the 997 wheels. With an offset of 56 they are the closest wheel to stock without spending a small fortune.

 

Thanks Mike, Enzo

Its making a lottle more sense, I guess I was thrown off course by the 'backspace' element of the guys measurements..

I might just look out for the 997 wheels :-)

Cheers
Mark

 

Can anyone tell me if we have negative offset, or positive offset?

Looking at this offset explaination, I'm assuming we have negative:

http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoWheelOffsets.dos

 

Positive.

The tell tale sign of negative offset wheels is a deep dish. Like the rear of an 86 951.

 

Thanks. That's what I thought, but I'm not exactly good with numbers, besides being easily confused.

For example, by the time I'm done typing this I will be sure the 928 wheels are negative offset.

 

If you run a 10 x 18 rear wheel with back spacing of et 65, would you need to run a spacer?