"9 & "11 GT Flairs, Anybody running them ? Options

[Luke]

I like the look feel of the steel 7" & 9" GT steel flares ... But have been kicking around the idea of going larger with the 9" & 11" glass flares since I am build a Lil' Street burner with a 280 hp Subie ...

Thought they may look a bit more aggressive, but retain the 70's factory race feel ...

Anybody running them ? ... photos ? ...

Thx. Dave

[John Kelly]

The way Armando did it is a good way to go. You could simply weld in strips of metal, and then add some shape using a ballpeen hammer and sand bag then hammer and dolly and shrinking disc to get good flow with little or no filler.

You can also stretch a lot more than you might think. Looking at the pictures, it might be possible to stretch the tops of the flares enough to get two more inches without cutting or welding at all. Thinning the metal a small amount over a fairly large area makes big changes without compromising strength. You would stretch lumps into the top of the flare, smooth and flatten them down, and repeat many times to get the metal to grow, somewhat like the effect of using a rolling pin on pie dough. Easier than it sounds, but plenty of work.

A simple way to see how much metal can "grow" is to take a 1/4" wide strip and hit it with a hammer over a flat steel surface until it is 1/3 again it's original width. Then measure the difference in thickness. Then imagine doing this over an area 5"-6" wide. There are some very fast methods for doing this that I have posted before. I will be add more soon.

In Craig's case, yellow is faster...

John www.ghiaspecialties.com