gbgastowers

better view of difference

Jon B.

The reason for that is more than likely because anyone taking the time to work on rounding the panels may as well flare them while they are at it.

I would personally like a set of Louie's rear quarters for my S. Aero mirrors and a custom offset setup of Fikse's would be awesome.

blown 87

I REALLY like that slantnose on the lights, has any one ever made a conversion kit?
I never knew that they made any slantnose 928's.
Outstanding.

Tom. M

I was told my track car (82 body) had the GTS flares put on by the PO. From what I heard, it was a lot of work and didn't lend themselves to an easy install given the different rear cover. I've already cracked them and there's bondo in there for sure.. I do like the subtleness of the flare though and lots of room for 315s .

S4ordie

Didn't Paul Champagne have his rear quarters modded by cutting front fenders and then blending them on the rear. That would look round.

I think Kevin did the work. Can't recall his full name or his Rlist name. Others may have it. He did the same to his car. Gains over two inches on each side.

Nicole

Auto designers rarely use any truly geometric shapes - sometimes they might make it appear so, but you'd be hard pressed to find any line that's exactly straight, or any prominent round shape that doesn't have to be so for functional reasons.

It's more a play of curves and surfaces, keeping proportions in mind.

One of the reasons the 928 has "squared" wheel arches is to reduce the untreated surface areas around them. If you'd make the arches round, the surface between door and front wheel would look very large and drag the car down visually (make it look heavier). It's one reason why there is a long Euro side flasher there on the non-US cars - to break-up the surface. Of course, they couldn't do this on US cars, or there would be a light show as you usually see it on big rigs and Christmas trees...

Look around the newer cars with the round wheel arches - they have fake or real vents between arch and door, headlights and turn signals that come closer to the wheel arch, etc. There are few cars with untreated surfaces as large as those on the 928.

In the rear, they had to strike a balance with the line of the door, the shape of the quarter window, and the overall proportions of the car. In addition, they had to consider space for tire chains, which were commonly used on daily driven Porsches at that time.

I personally think the 930-like wheel arch shown above makes the car look really heavy in the back, and its shape does not correspond to anything else on the car. It looks like an aftermarket modification to me.

Here is another try at making the arches round. Note the louvers in the door, which change the whole relationship of the surfaces in the rear of the car (unfortunately, I don't have a pic with the door closed):

neilh

Like this - aluminum flares?

Gary Knox

Kevin Michael (no longer active on this board) actually was the first Rennlist member that I'm aware of who took a set of front S4 fenders and put them on the rear to give a GTS look, but with the rounded opening. His car has been sold (to another Rennlister, I think) about 9 months ago. I saw the car several times, and it came out looking great.

Gary Knox
'94 GTS

sweet928

I like that but still has flares. My OP is to see if anyone made round arches without the flares. Seems a lot less work to cut a round hole if you don't flare it too. I'd be curious how that would look but seems no one ever did it without flaring the quarters too.

I disagree with the person who said GTS's don't have rounder arches than S4's and OB's. They seemingly do indeed have rounder openings than previous years.

sweet928

I respect your explanation but that white 928 is not a good example. The modification to the lower body exaggerates everything...in a bad way. I still am not convinced GTS's don't have rounder arches than S4's and OB's. The pictures posted in this thread seem to support that difference. I think everyone would agree that he GTS is the epitome of the 928 series and I see round arches.

I wish there were some better pictures of OB's with flared quarters though. I think that might look really cool with the OB body, no spoilers, etc. I'd have to see nice whole car shots from rear quarter perspective though to be sure.

Gary Knox

Sweet 928,

You are correct in that the GTS's and the GT/S4's do have different rear fender profiles for the openings.

I was a bit surprised, but I did tracings of the opening lips on both my '89 and '94 for Jerry Feather when he started the rear fender liner project a year or so ago. They were different, but I don't remember exactly how (old brain doesn't remember much!). IF Jerry comes to this thread, he may be able to illuminate the issue further.

Gary Knox

928er

I wish I had flared out the front fenders on my 928 when it was getting its body treatment.... no much... maybe an inch or so.....

Jerry Feather

I think the OP's basic question has pretty well been answered. No one has ever done what he is asking about having been done. He is right of course that the OB, S4, and GT rear wheel well arches or openings are different from the GTS. The GTS opening is 1 3/8 inch taller and the foreward and rear upper "corners" are a little closer in than the others, by about an eighth of an inch each. That makes the GTS exactly what he says--a little more "roundish."

One could make the change in shape with a sheet metal shear, a proper dolly and a hammer, plus the use of a torch for working the metal, especially when some shrinking will be needed. When this kind of sheet metal work is done with a lot of hammer and dolly work it stretches the metal which must then be shrunk back to the proper shape.

There are other ways that might be suggested to do this modification, such as various ways to graft the arch on from a GTS, using rivets, Mig or Tig welding or adhesives, such as the "professionals" use in modern day body work, but I don't want to suggest any of that would be the best way to do this conversion.

Basically speaking, I think this conversion would be in very good taste and would make the rear arches a lot more like the fronts for any car with the earlier style. and not including flares.

I left my camera at the office or I would take a picture or some of the two patterns of the two subject wheel arches. Maybe tomorrow.

Jerry Feather

sweet928

Thanks Jerry. Good stuff.

Jerry Feather

In addition, aside from the "profile" shape of the opening, if one were going to change that, he would also need to deal with the different shape of the metal around the opening. On the GTS the metal just above the opening is nearly verticle while on the earlier cars it is angled in significantly. I haven't measured the actual difference, but I suspect it is 10 or 15 degrees different.

Therefore, in reshaping the early car's arch to the GTS shape, one would need also to flare the upper part of the new opening out some, and only from the rub strip down, in order to make the other dimension of the arch correct. In other words, if you simply reshape the opening, the front to back contour will leave the new opening sort of concave in the middle, from the verticle view, and look pretty bad.

That makes another problem for the "professional" tack welders and gluers in trying to bond a GTS arch on to the earlier car, without adding the whole flare. I don't think it will fit. The fenders in that area are just too different.

Jerry Feather