My good buddy's family took off for LegoLand in San Diego for week, but he didn't want to leave the keys to his Boxster in the house for his 18 y.o. daughter to do dumb things with
So he told her he gave me the keys to do some maintenance on it
I wanted to see how his 17" wheels would fit and look on my car, so I took some time to investigate. The fronts are 205-50-17 on 17"x7" wheels with ET of 55. The rears are 255-40-17 on 17"x8.5" wheels with ET of 48. My wheels are BBS three-piecers in 16"x7" and 16"x9" with 205-50-16 and 225-50-16 (junk) tires. The Boxster wheel/tire combos are 39/46 lbs (F/R), while the BBS combos are 32/36 lbs. The diameters of the Boxster wheels are 25"/24.5" (F/R), while the BBS are 24"/24.5".
Below are some pics. First is my BBS rear tire/wheel, showing how little clearance exists between the tire and the flare lip. No spacers are used with my BBS wheels, nor is the alignment likely to be close to good. But there is a LOT of clearance between the tire and inner fender well -- on the order of 1" on the driver side and 1-3/8" on the passenger side.
Click to view attachmentNext up is the rear Boxster wheel mounted, followed by a pic of the rear inner clearance. All of the Boxster wheels were mounted using factory Porsche 944 spacers, which are about 3/4" thick.
Click to view attachmentClick to view attachmentObviously, the tire to inner fender well clearance is too tight -- I cannot even fit my pinkie finger up there. No camber shims are mounted up right now, so camber is maximized.
Finally, here is the Boxster front wheel mounted up (again, with a 3/4" spacer) -- which is about perfect in terms of clearance with these wheels.
Click to view attachmentAs you all know, it is getting harder and harder to find good 16" performance tires (much less period correct 15" tires). So I might look for some Boxster wheels and try to sell my BBS rims to a 930 enthusiast. What do you guys think?