Wheels, How Wide Can I Go Options

[johnmhudson111]

What is the widest wheel that will fit under the rear fenders without major modifications. I have a couple of 7" Fuch wheels off a 911 collecting dust in my garage that I would like to put on the 72 once it arrives.
Thanks!

[Allan]

I am running 205/16's on 6 inch wide fuchs with rolled fenders. It's tight. I don't know if 7's would work without at least pulling the fenders out a bit.

[Joe Bob]

IF using wheels with the correct offsett...you can get 205s....215s IF you can find them....225s with fender lip mods....sometimes.

I've seen 1/2 inch differences on fenders from side to side and car to car....

[Joe Ricard]

Depends on offest and back space of the wheel. We have figured out that 5" of back space is about all that 90% of the 914 without anymods can handle. PROVIDED you don't stick a tire on the rim with lots of side wall crown. (too wide).

Grant got a 15 x 8 with 5" back space and a 205/50-15 Hoosier (equal to 225) under his car with some massaging.
I got 15 x 8 with 4" backspace same size Hoosier and had to seriously whack bend and flare my fenders.

[johnmhudson111]

QUOTE (Joe Ricard @ Jul 20 2005, 10:58 AM)

Depends on offest and back space of the wheel. We have figured out that 5" of back space is about all that 90% of the 914 without anymods can handle. PROVIDED you don't stick a tire on the rim with lots of side wall crown. (too wide). Grant got a 15 x 8 with 5" back space and a 205/50-15 Hoosier (equal to 225) under his car with some massaging. I got 15 x 8 with 4" backspace same size Hoosier and had to seriously whack bend and flare my fenders.

These are the OE front wheels that came on a 87 911 Carrera so they are the stock offest (whatever that is), I have 225/50/16 Yokohama tires on them. I ran these on my 86 944 for awhile with a set of 8" 944 Turbo rears (which found a home on my dad's 911 about a year ago). I have a 5 bolt conversion on order and would like to use the wheels I have instead of waiting for the money for GT flairs to come in. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/idea.gif)

[grantsfo]

My expereince owning three 914's tells me not all rear fender clearences are equal. My current car is quite spacious I could run big fat 205/50 Hoosiers on wide offset wheels with just the fender lip rolled. I fit 7 inch wheels with roughly 4 1/2 back spacing with 205/50/15's under my fenders with just a rolled lip as well.

Recently went to 8" wheels as Joe mentions above and had to message the fenders a little more - enough to where my old paint job cracked in some places.

My opinion, for what it is worth, is that you should be ok if you keep stock or near stock ride hieght and if the 205 series tire you get isnt too wide. Not all 205s are created equally.

[lapuwali]

I agree with Mikey and Grant. The fronts are generally no problem, but the rear fenders can vary quite a bit from car to car, and from side to side on the same car. My '73 had about 1/2" clearance on the left side with 6x15 5-lug Fuchs wearing 195s, but the right side had less than 1/16th of clearance, so those wheels and tires were as wide as I could go on that car w/o altering the fenders. My '71 has a bit more than 1/4" clearance on both sides with 5.5x15 4-lug Fuchs with 195s.

Karmann appeared to do a lot more hand-finishing of these cars than one would expect out of a mass-produced car.

To complicate matters, the sizes on tires are very approximate, and can vary by a great deal from one tire manufacturer to another, and even from one tire model to another from the same manufacturer. I've owned 205/50-15 tires where one set was a good 15mm wider than the other. One set was actually 196mm from shoulder to shoulder, and the others were 211mm. One set was rounded up to 205, the others rounded down. The most extreme case I saw were a set of 195 tires that were WIDER by a few mm than a set of 205s from another manufacturer.

195 appears to be safe, as long as the offset is close to stock, on every stock-fender'd 914. Beyond that, it entirely depends on your particular car.