I have had these wheels for a while now but had not tried fitting them to the car before. they were buried in the front of the storage locker I rent to keep the rest of the cars parts. So today I moved everything and brought them home to try fitting them.

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I already had a good idea of the tire sizes I wanted to run. my original thought was to go with 245 / 50 /16 on the 8" Fuchs on the rear and 225/ 50 16 on the 7"s for the front.

Good thing I didn't buy the tires...........

Even though the fenders were flared with the intention of using these size wheels it seem that the space under the fenders is not as cavernous as I thought.

After trying the 8s on the rear I am not even sure 225s will fit.

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With a straight edge on the outer lip of the wheels I have 3/16s on the pass side and only 1/16 on the driver side, that in addition to the 5/16s thickness of the outer lip on the wheel equals 8 3/4 total possible tire width.
The specs on the 225 /50 tires are based on a 7" wheel and show a 8.1 in tread and a 9.2 sectional width. so the tread will fit under the fender but I don't know if the sidewall will rub.

The GFs car has 225 45s on 7.5in rims and the sidewall is almost straight up from the wheel.

Really want to use the 8" wheels but I would hate to ruin the new paint job.

probably go with 205 / 50 s on the front 7" wheels

The wheels do look nice.

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How much space do you need to fit the 225's under the fenders?

I was looking at the BF Goodrich G-force Comp2 A/S they are available in the sizes I need. (would like)

225's on 8x15 or 16 Fuchs work really well with GT flares. All bets are off with other mods.

I have 7.5"x16 3-piece rims that go on my pulled narrow body with Hoosier
205's which are probably as wide as your 225s.

However, the wheels are built as ~38mm offset where the 8x15 you have are 11mm
offset. Also, on my car I need an exact amount of spacers that is different each
side. No joke, after the first run of first autocross with these tires, I needed to
take off the left wheel and remove a 1/16" spacer to avoid burning paint. And it
now barely rubs on the frame.

So, unless you cut and sectioned your rear fenders to get at least 1" more room
than I got by pulling, I think you will not be able to make them fit. (Also I have a
lot of camber and stiff springs, which helps).

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The Fuchs I have are 7x16 and 8x16 both with the 23.3 offset. That's why I thought they would fit.

I may have to run 205 /50 -16s front and back.

I thought of buying a used set of 225 50s just to check the fit.

I have another set of 7" Fuchs I could run on the rear but they don't match, and would need refinished.

FWIW, as hard as the body shop tried, they could not fit my 16x8's under my rear fenders by stretching alone. They finally had to cut, pull and patch to get them to fit. I am running 225/50's.

Your tire guys will not be happy to fit 205s on 8" wheels.

I suggest selling the 8s and getting a set of 7s. Either that or adding GT flares onto the car.

--DD

205's on 8's will look like ricer wheels

I had the fenders flared by Tangerine when the rust repair was done. with the intention stated at that time I was going to be running 8" Fuchs on the rear. I really just believed they would fit. With the volume of additional cash expended on flaring the fenders, and the work I put into finishing the fenders and in particular the work on getting the fender lips just right, going to GT flares is out of the question... (and I just didn't want them)

I do have a set of 7s but they are RSR finished with a few marks and only the very edge of the rim is left clear anodized. I prefer the satin black finish on the wheels.

I don't want to give up on the 8x16s just yet. I am thinking of getting some used 225/50-16s for the rear to check the fit and just to get the car off of the cart. in the meantime I can check into getting the RSR finished 7s stripped and re anodize the edges and satin black paint the centers to match the other wheels. then put 205/50s on them.


If I really have to....

This happens at our shop. We build a car. The customer decides to supply the wheels. They come in after the car is painted. We now can't change the fit of the metal flare. Customer wants us to make it fit. Car sits. Customer is unhappy.

these 16x7" were rubbing and blistered my paint - i had 205/55 on them (Potenza)
so i also had Tangerine work the fenders to give more room, they also had to replace the lips, but man they are still very tight on the back corner where the fender starts to cut back in. I have a set of 6's to put on rear and i might consider selling the pair of 7's on there now- my local shop that's going to prep the car for paint has a metal guy that has done some amazing work on some local 911's i just saw this week, so as he preps my car for paint he has to smooth out those dimples that were left from the tangerine work- if he can carefully work another 1/4 or so there and they will clear carefully i may try and keep the 7's but i don't want to ruin, like you, a nice new paint job --
So my advice is you can fit some nice 7" rims in there be happy with that and get some 7's and sell the 8's. - if you cant find any i know someone who has lots of them and can finish them just how you want---

Beautiful car by the way!!

Phil

This kind is shows the profile after the lip repair and whole fender being hammered out- they are in there but it's really tight- I now regret having tried to fit those 7's in there because the fenders were perfect before I went down that road- I have to live with the consequences and $$ it cost to rectify- and I almost just said screw it and put GT flares on, wold have probably cost about the same considering the $$in shop time by Chris and the gang trying to fix straighten make room for the 7's- but I was talked out of doing that being the car is mostly original 2.0 matching # appearance and a rare color-
Chris did a great job on your car, they still look very original whic is what I was after too.
Have you tried to see how 7" 16's fit? You could or ably put some small spacers on to use up the rest of the space with our risk of rubbing