Doc V.

Which RUF 18" wheels did you buy--the 18" aluminum or the 18" modular aluminum? I've used the 18" aluminum wheels (part #R93 300 360 01) on a 993 Carrera with stock and modified suspensions, and the wheels have never rubbed against the standard factory suspension or the factory ROW M030 suspension.

2nd993

The aluminum one piece 18" wheels - they rub on the left/passenger front someplace up near the spring/assume it is the spring because its so tight in there.

My car is a 1997 993 CAB

Unless RUF sent me something else I ordered these.

Offset: 8,5 x 18: 58 mm, 10 x 18: 66 mm

2nd993

R93 300 360 01 is what i paid for.

David in LA

That seems to be a less than ideal fitment. The front wheels in the pic below are 8.5" ET45 and current wheels are 9" ET40. In any case, it's a great excuse to get coilovers and lower the suspension

(edit: if you are keeping the current suspension and settings, I would add a 7mm spacer and you'll put the fitment back towards the OEM offset for 18" wheels)

Doc V.

You purchased the proper RUF wheels (with the appropriate offsets) for your car, 2nd993. They should not make contact with any of your car's suspension components. Your car's suspension is creating the problem, IMHO.

2nd993

David its the offset recommended by RUF I think.
I wansn't really ready for the suspension - worse yet is that I left the car at Rector in burligname which is a nice shop but aybe not the place I want my suspension worked on $$. oh well so be it.


i still wondeer if the 7mm spacers RUF uses will fix it short term and if i'll have any other issues using the spacer...

anyway i'm sure this questions is already answered someplace else but since I have Doc V and LA Dave on the thread im in the right spot.

Can I lower the suspension an 3/4 of an inch using those Bilstein's without any other modifications to struts etc.? I waiting to hear what attitional side effect/features I'm about to cause to happen in a chain reaction that has me building a GT3 car from my 993 Cab a part at a time :-) :-{

Doc V.

Your car should not need 7mm spacers for the RUF wheels that you purchased, 2nd993. RUF stipulates that the R93 300 360 01 wheels should be added when those wheels are used on the following models: 965 (964 Turbo), rear axle only; 996 Carrera and GT3 (front and rear axles); 997 Carrera (rear axle only); and 986 Boxster (front axle only).

Bob Brooks (Viper Bob), a rennlist.com site sponsor, always has sound advice about suspension modifications for 993s. See post 14 in this thread.

fast_freddy

FYI...

When I put my old 18" Ruf wheels on the bone stock suspension I had zero rubbing. I lowered the car with H&R springs and Bilstein HD's and RS spec. alignment and had no rubbing whatsoever with the same wheels.

2nd993

freddy - thanks i hear you. something is wrong but i am where i am.. the rims or tires are rubbing some place and i can see a slight slight slight sign of a rub on the inner rim of the wheel. i say slight because i pulled it out of the shop, felt and heard a little rubbing, spun around and handed it back. It was 5pm on a Friday so I'm attempting to smarten up over the weekend and have a plan on monday that involves a conversation with the head mechanic, some measurements, a call to RUF and probably a call to Bob @ vortex

its a slight rubbing on one side up front/driver side - i'll be on top of it in the AM with my shop foreman and we'll know more. my opnion is that its the driver side front coil. its so tight that i imagine any load there will result in the rubbing sound i can hear and feel. i can't reproduce the rubbing on the lift so its happening when the wheel is under load.

i also see a slight imperfection on the inside lip of that wheel like the machining or forging process had a little imprefection that they tried to correct. i'll check all the dimensions on everything to be sure.

How much room (if you checked) do you think you have between the inner rim and your spings now and back when you where bone stock? From my understanding of the 993 front end - the springs are the closest thing to the wheel? what type of clearance would be acceptable anyway? are we talking about decimeters, centimeters or millimeters? I don't know what takes place in there at speed and under load - is it acceptable to have 10mm of clearance - sounds too close to me but i wouldn't know.

i suspect that the front end of the 993 is not perfect and varies from car to car enough that you cannot rely on the same thing working for every car when you go beyond stock. i I think I'm hearing some variations on what fits one car vs another of the same model year and type.

would have been nice to have your exerience and just throw them on and drive them a while. i was also looking forward to trying the new sumitomo tires... in fact i wonder if the tires need to be considered. i doubt there are a lot of people running that combination...Sumitomo IIIs, RUF 18s and a stock suspension.

May do the suspension anyway simply because i am an idiot and can not stop the process of modifying things that are already pretty good. i would like maybe 1/2" or 3/4" lower ride not much more. and less roll as i rocket around the clover leaf on the 92 off 101 (how stupid does that sound)

2nd993

I'm farther along now and I confirmed both front wheels slightly rub with my bone stock 1997 993 Cab - standard US ride height. I can not believe that only McCulla and I have this issue with this offset wheel. In my opinion there's no way this wheel fits a a stock 993 97 993 Cab without some work.

So let the record stand that at least 2 people reported it didn't fit.

Now on to the fun parts

I'm going with a 5mm spacer and I'm trying to confirm with a couple of sources that the Pss10 recommended by Viper Bob is indeed smaller in diameter than my stock springs. Two of my shops say no I say that I think it is based on Bob's estimate that the front springs on the pss10 are around 60mm diameter and the stock ones are about 110mm (measured by me with a bent plastic ruler at my high tech porsche shop -not kidding) . does bilstein publish a data sheet somplace that covers all the dimensions?

It looks to me that for sure I get 20mm of extra clearance on the spring with these pss10s over stock. Can someone else confirm this so that I can at least have a coin toss 50/50 set of opinions that i'm right.

that plus the 5mm in spacers should do it.

c4consult

What do they say at ruf?

2nd993

at RUF they say that the wheels should fit and that nobody else has the problem so it must be something wrong with my car.

FlatSix911

Two possible options based on this thread:

1. Add spacers to your wheels for clearance
2. Change to smaller diameter springs in front

2nd993

yes thanks. i also want to thank viper bob who talked me off a cliff this week. i had all the "lead mechanics" from different shops telling me many different things re: the dimensions of springs, what's normal what's not etc. 5mm spacers work but are not ideal. i'm working on swapping the springs now.

6K later im likely to have the wheels and suspension the way i want it. we'll see.

2nd993

So in the end. The RUF wheels do not fit w/out spacers in the front of 5mm or greater on my 97 993 stock cab, i went with the pss10s thanks to viper bob and some others.
that works but costs some big $