Running 9 inch CS wheel up front and back
 

Just to verify…

87 944T

Could one run a completely square set up on an 87 turbo (late offsets)…9” front and 9 inch rear ..et 60mm

i have a line on another set of rears.

Thanks.

Quick edit..

According to the wheel offset calculator the wheel fitment is exactly the same as my current 7. 5 inch.. 65 et D90s on the front.

My current CS wheels. I'd Obviously do the new 9 fronts to match. Prismatic powders Sutter Gold... Satin clear
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https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...384ee75ca3.jpg

They fit and fill the wheel well quite nicely. I vaguely remembering running 5mm spacers when I ran 9"s CS up front, but it may not have been necessary. I had spacers in the rear to reduce the sunken look

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...9853fb02e.jpeg

Yes, this is the setup I ran on my S2 race car and it's really nice. The problem as always is tire selection.

thnx...was there anything else you needed to do?

actually with a square set up i think t may be easier to find tires vs a staggered set up. From what i see many manufactures make the 16 " size you need for the back, but not the front or vice versa. My car currently has different two brands on the front and back.

as far as handling with all other things being equal i would assume the car would become more neutral and not favor understeering. This is just for a street car driven spiritly around country roads etc...and for looks also.

im happy enough with my CS wheels now...just have an opportunity to get another set of 9s to refinish and was curious. Thanks

I think there are no downsides to going square 16X9 if you can get tires. All the cars I test fitted the wheels on had smaller springs. Try test fitting one of your current rears just to be sure, then go for it and buy that other set. Sell the fronts to a VW guy.

9" CS's are a tight fit on the inside, likely to rub stock diameter springs depending on camber. If you're running aftermarket suspension using smaller OD coil springs, it won't be a problem.

AFAIK Porsche never ran a square setup on the 944 Cup cars, or the 968 S/RS. And they were real competition cars.

You are correct, the magnesium cup wheels only grew to 16X8 front. I'm not sure why they didn't just go for a square setup. I've run all kinds of combinations on track from staggered to square of lots of different sizes. Square setup is definitely a hot setup. My fastest laps have been with 16X9 CS square.

I'm struggling to think of any RWD road car that has run a square set up. Are all the high performance car manufacturers wrong?

Gt86, miata, Camaro, Cadillac ct4, BMW 2 series, there's lots. Most road cars are setup for under steer as it's a bit safer, albeit a bit slower.

What does your car with a square setup do in the dry, oversteer or understeer?

It's pretty neutral, but it can under steer if I go in too hot to a corner. That's the s2 with 968 engine and square club sport wheels. The 3L 951 has a staggered setup and I'm finding it challenging to get enough front grip. Here's a good discussion in the racing forum from a few years ago.
https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-a...r-944-a-2.html

Seems to be some different opinions on that thread, is going wide on the front a short cut, instead of a better front suspension setup? I had an Audi A4 quattro with a square setup, that was easy to control in 4 wheel slides, in the wet, but the front pushed in the dry. I now have a SEAT Cupra R AWD that came from the factory with 2 degrees negative camber all round, and a square setup. And it doesn't understeer anything like as much.

Running 9" wheels with OEM late offsets will change your scrub radius, causing your steering to be harder on turn in and an increased amount of tire wear. These are fairly minor issues, but issues nonetheless.

A front-heavy AWD Audi will almost always push in the dry, unless it has a very aggressively set-up suspension, or the electronic aids of modern versions----modern Audis (and Porsche Macans, et al) use very aggressive torque biasing with the inside rear brake in a turn to help the car turn in. Many of my Macan customers wear out their rear brake pads more rapidly than the fronts with slightly spirited street driving (this is also because this platform uses the tiny single-piston sliding brake calipers in the rear versus the monster fixed 6-caliper versions in the front).

The key factor with your Cupra R is the aggressive camber setup. It seems like the factory did their homework on that one, square setup and camber settings being just a couple of key components of a balanced package.

Porsche and BMW (and others) have long setup most of their cars to understeer for safety, just look at the factory camber settings front versus rear of a Porsche 996/997/991 or a BMW E39, etc. BMW last did a "proper" square setup for the E36 M3, which is part of the reason it has the best out-of-box setups of any of the older M3s. E46 M3 and later were heavy and was setup to understeer for safety, but the aftermarket has the solutions.

For a street-based front engine/rear engine car that is used on track, a square setup is almost always desirable, because front end grip is of paramount importance, and any oversteering tendencies can be balanced out by sway bar adjustments, spring rate adjustments, differential setup, etc. It's all about a balanced package, but maximum rubber on the track surface as allowed by rules will rarely be a bad idea. Look to the track-based Chevy Camaro Z28/ZL1 packages of the last generation or two, monster track cars out of the box, 315 tires all around, lots of negative camber, plus well-setup suspensions.