Jlaa

Hi gang,

So I've been round and round with the folks over @ Tramont and solicited the advice of magdaddy, Dick in TN, and Alps, and I've convinced myself to get a set.
Please oh please, let the shipping gods smile up me and not visit endless shipping/VAT/damage disaster upon the house of jlaa!
(I'll be using a business shipping account --- perhaps Crane Logisitics .... I will post when I figure this all out).

Does anyone have thoughts on the perfect mildly-conservative offsets for a NB with Tramont Cups?

I have a Av Green 993 C2, street driven, factory alignment settings, lowered to RoW height.

This silver car is Alps' car. I think it is nearly perfect. Front is 18.8.5 ET+52 and Rear is 18x10 ET+59. These are the specs that Tramont makes that are for TUV compliance.
Tires are 225/40/18 on front and 265/35/18 on rear. Alps has told me that he feels the front offset is nearly perfect and the rear offset could use a smidge more poke.

The green car is my car. I think the front has not enough poke and the rear has too much poke. These are hartmann replicas that came w/ the car ---
18x8 ET+50 front and 18x10 ET+55 rear. Tires are the same -- 225-40-18 in the front and 265-35-18 in the rear.

I was thinking perhaps 18x8.5 ET+52 in the front? (4mm more poke than what I have now)

I was thinking perhaps 18x10 ET+58 or ET+57 in the rear? (3mm or 2mm less poke than what I have now) Arrgghhh... cannot decide and I am obsessing
over minutiae --- 1 mm difference.

Advice welcome. And BTW, there is also an Av-green on OE RS wheels (ET+65 in the rear) at the bottom of this post too.

Magdaddy

Best of luck with the process.

What simply amazes me is how differently Tramont specs the front wheel builds...NB vs WB. They reccomended 8.5" et 40 to me at first.

timothymoffat

I like the look of the silver RS (Alps). Slightly more aggressive than stock offsets. Btw, rear tire size is likely 265/35-18.

Jlaa

Thanks! I fixed the typo on rear tire size.

pirahna

Jim Dorociak recommends 8.5 and 10.5 for NB cars, not sure what size offset he is going with but it might be worth sending him a PM.

P-track

This is what we, and Tramont, recommend to our customers for a NB 993 with standard brakes with ROW standard or sport height.

8.5x18 ET 52
10x18 ET 59

Both Alps car and the Aventura with RS wheels are lowered to ROW sport or even close to RS. That makes a big difference to overall look. I would stay with ET58 maximum if you intend to keep ROW height. I think it will look to wide if you go beyond ET58, especially without the RS side sills.

orangecurry

Being different, here is my view.

The NB handles best on 7J and 9J, but we all agree it looks better with 8J up front.

A NB does not need any MORE rubber on the road.

I also think 265/35 can look too stretched on a 10J, so I would choose:

8Jx18 fronts, 225/40 offset 50
9Jx18 rears 265/35 offset 52

Jlaa

Thanks P-track! (and I do know that Flugplatz looks after Tramont sales as well)....
Question ... when you say

"I would stay with ET58 maximum if you intend to keep ROW height. I think it will look to wide if you go beyond ET58, especially without the RS side sills."

Are you inferring if you keep ET fixed (at 58mm for instance) that the "poke" will look more and more pronounced as the ride height goes up?

Jlaa

OK then! So taking the collective advice of the rennlist, including P-Track for Tramont offsets and both Magdaddy and Dick in TN for logistics, FX, and fund transfer advice, I pulled the trigger on a set of Tramont cups (wheels I have been desiring for a long time)!

The easy part was getting them built. Christine @ Tramont has been very very nice to deal with. So I'm told that my wheels have finished the manufacturing process. And, like Magdaddy and Dick in TN have both pointed out, the lips are clear anodized. Below is a picture of the freshly made wheels, sitting @ the Tramont factory. Sizes are 8.5x18 ET+52 for the front and 8.5x18 ET+58 for the rear.

I selected +58 for the rear, as Alps mentioned to me that the +59 offset on the rear of his silver car (above) could stand ever-so more poke in the rear ---- so I took P-track's advice and asked Tramont to make +58 in the rear.

Anyways, below are pictures I got from Christine below!. Now to figure out shipping, which I'll handle through a business account. I've got a quote from Fedex which I am not comfortable to pull the trigger with, and I am also in the process of quoting out Clear Freight Logistics. I'll let folks here know how I get on.

OK OK ... here are the pictures from Christine @ Tramont below... (rears have 2.5" outer barrels and fronts have 1.5" outer barrels)

P-daddy

Beautiful wheels. 10" rears ET 58 is the exact spec as OEM 997 Carrera IIIs that I had on my NB 993. No rubbing or issues with 265s.

F18drvr

I've got a quote from Fedex which I am not comfortable to pull the trigger with, and I am also in the process of quoting out Clear Freight Logistics. I'll let folks here know how I get on.

Why not comfortable with FEDEX? I am a 757 pilot with them and am just curious...I am sure my Boss would be curious too. Our motto is "The World on Time", and if it doesn't arrive on time, then you get your money back...most people don't bother with trying to get their money back bc they are just happy to get their product...but FEDEX tells us air jocks to be good ambassadors...

F18drvr

great looking wheels BTW

Jlaa

F18drvr! (Hornetdrvr?)

OK truth be told I'm a little scared off the fedex route after talking through Magdaddy's, ahem, experiences with Fedex in the various Tramont Cup threads. Also fedex quoted my business account an $800 bill to ship two 24x24x24" 66 lbs boxes from Culoz France to California USA.....

So personally I have very good luck with fedex and stuff getting stuff here on time. I'm a bit worried about handling and the customer service that Magdaddy had to deal with!

kiwi 911

Jlaa - how are you dealing with the center caps?

What is the weight of these rims?

And do you have contact email address for Tramont please (tempted to pull the trigger myself)

Magdaddy

get a second, and a third quote from Fed-Ex...EVERY Fed-Ex rep you talk to, will give you a different shipping quote. We had quotes from $340-almost $600. One Fed-Ex rep finally told me that all small package international shipping(what the box size/weight are classified as) is the same price anywhere in the US. No way should a business acct pay any more than $550 for shipping, that was the ballpark area for the majority of the quote's.

Every quote you get, ask for a confirmation number. Some Fed-Ex reps said I didn't need a confirmation number either. Every Fed Ex rep I talked to, told me something different...everytime. I simply can not overstate how F'ed up I think that company is.

They have a "Great Rates Dept", they give price breaks to fill "empty planes" or so I was told.. Try 1-877-463-7408. Just checked back thru my notes on my shipping fiasco for that nugget of info. I did finally talk to some very helpful, and apparently knowledgeable folks at Fed-Ex. But the vast majority of rep's...and I talked to alot of them over the 4 week period my shipping dibacle was on-going, were completely useless.