I am looking at this car but the side view shows what appears to be a lot of rear fender gap. The wheels are an aftermarket 18" SSR model. The car appears to have a jacked up in the rear look. The owner says the suspension is stock but that the wheels rub a little in the front. I would suspect if the back was down where it should be the fronts might not rub.

Does anyone have some ideas as to why the back is jacked up so much? Could this be the result of an accident? Or is it just poor sizing of wheels & tires? Should I be alarmed?

I'm having the car inspected and the owner appears to be honest and forthright. He has no explanation for the increased rear height and suggests it might just be the picture. From the front 3/4 view the car doesn't look as jacked up. I am hoping someone here might have some ideas.

Close up of wheel well.

Driver side picture. There is a dent by the gas cap. The owner says that his roommate backed into the car coming out of the driveway which looks believeable.

Here is a front 3/4 view. Other than the small dent and the ride height question the car looks really clean. Oh yah, the stickers will all be removed the minute I take possession.

shoot, it looks good in those shots. What about the engine? no pics? how many miles? any mods?

It's an R1 model with limited modifications (downpipe/exhaust/intake/aluminum AST/wheels, etc.) Apparently it has a Mazda reman with 30K on it and has no issues. Here is an engine picture:

I smell rice burning.

More pics. Front right side:

Rear:

Front:

It has an aftermarket DEFI water temp gauge and stereo. Otherwise it's the stock R1 interior - including the suede seats.

QUOTE (URY914 @ Jun 9 2005, 07:24 AM)

I smell rice burning.

Look on the bright side....it's capable of an 8 lb/hp ratio on the stock turbos so unless you're pushing 200 hp in your 914 you won't have to look at it very long. Unless you can get that skateboard of yours down to under 1000 lbs

All kidding aside, I really like the looks of the 3rd generation RX7. To me they just don't look like a 12 year old car. I had a friend one time tell me he saw a "new" RX7 and I had to convince him that it was at least 10 years old as they stopped bringing them in to North America in 1995. To top it off the R1 model was is an excellent package for track use stock out of the box. Even today there are only a few cars that can match it's performance and they cost considerably more.

So if that's rice, paint me white and call me "Uncle Ben". Back on topic though, anyone have an explanation for the ride height issue? I did a search on the web and there was one guy who put 18's on his car and it got the "4x4" look and was looking to get a set of coil overs so that he could lower it. By using proper "plus" sizing when selecting tires I can't see why that would be necessary. Offsets affect how far in/out from the hub the wheel sits - not the overall height of the wheel package. So aside from having the wrong size sidewall on your tires, how can ride height be affected?

The amount of gap above the wheel may just be stock. And working with the "plus sizing" while going up wheel size will only keep your overall diameter the same. What I read a few years ago (I think that it was on the Tire Rack site) is that cars will look funny if the gap is greater than the sidewall height. So as your sidewall height decreases, at some point you've got to lower the car to reduce the gap, or you end up with the 4x4 syndrome. So if the car was delivered with 16's, imagine an extra inch of rubber, the gap looks right then.

The weird part is that this "rule" sounds fairly simple, makes sense to me and I've never seen it again. Must be one of those secret things... so don't tell anyone.

Eric

Here is a picture of another car I considered buying (owner wanted too much for it). It also has 18 inch wheels and a stock suspension but doesn't seem to have the same wheel gap.

In this closeup his wheel gap looks good but take a look at the car in the background. Sort of looks like the same problem as the one I'm buying.

Just another shot of the black car. I really want those rims for my car. I would never have picked them until I saw what they actually look like on the car. Beautiful.

Car number two sure looks good with those wheels.

ewdysar: Interesting thought. So the black rubber "hides" the wheel gap to certain extent? I think I'm going to e-mail the owner of the other black car to see what his tire sizes are and to find out if he lowered the car at all.

I wouldn't say "hides", it's more of an optical illusion, like one of those "which square looks bigger" things. There should be more rubber than air, it even works for giant, lifted 4x4's. They need alot of rubber to look right. Check out the people with 22's on their trucks, it just looks funny and I think that this is why.

Eric

dude,
tell me those pictures are from last winter and that you do not still have snow on the ground in June!

DO like the wheels on #2..


M

QUOTE (URY914 @ Jun 9 2005, 07:24 AM)

I smell rice burning.

[QUOTE]

As opposed to... Bratwurst? Weinersnitzel?

The car looks too high to me.