Optimum 3.2 Fuch's wheel sizes?

[Greg Park]

I'm interested to here what wheel sizes different people run on their 3.2 Carrera.

1987 standard wheel size was 15in front 6J with 195/65VR & rear 7J with 205/55ZR tyres.
1988 standard wheel size was 15in front 7J with 205/55ZR & rear 8J with 225/50ZR tyres.
1989 standard wheel size was 16in front 6J with 205/55ZR & rear 8J with 225/50ZR tyres.
There was also an optional 16in front 7J with 205/55ZR & rear 8J with 225/50ZR tyres.

In 911 & Porsche World, April 2005 in 'Your Cars' the owner is running his 3.2 on 8J & 9J Fuchs. I like the way it looks but don't want to compromise the ride.

I presume these are off a Turbo?
Has anyone else run wheels this size?
What are people's thoughts on this combination?
Maybe running 7J front and 9J rear may be an option?

On my previous 3.2 I ran standard wheels with spacers to give a more aggresive look.

Any thoughts/feedback would be welcome.

 

[oliver]

IMO the 3.2 Carrera handles and rides very nicely on 6s & 7s x16 and, ideally, shouldn't be burdened with additional unsprung weight from bigger wheels and tyres.

I was surprised that Porsche opted for 8s on the rears as I thought that this would increase understeer. But stretching the same size tyre to fit stiffens the sidewalls rather than increasing the foot-print, so perhaps this isn't the case.

For aesthetics 7s & 8s x16 do look good, probably on 205/55s and 225/50s.

 

[Guest]

I use 7X16 and 8X16, with 205/55 and 245/45, which fit the wheel arches well, and don't seem to cause any understeer.

I went for the 245 to try to cope with the extra grunt, just in case it got a bit 'twitchy'.
The front wheel arches are rolled, to cope with the lowering, but they still rub slightly on mini-roundabouts, some of which I have to take in two goes !

 

[Andy Tims]

Mine had 16 X 7J & 8J as standard which are fine for road, but I use 15 x 7J & 8J replica's for track use & to be quite honest, hardly swap them for the the 16's as I don't do all that much road driving.
The 15's lower the gearing slighly, but not enough to make motorway trips too tiresome.

 

[Jacob]

Interseting!
At the moment I am considering swapping my 7's for 9's and moving the 8's to the front and the new 9's to the rear (would I have to change the 8's rubber from 225/55 to 205/55?).
This is not for any handeling benifit, but for the overall look of the car. I think that the 8's and 9's give a much more aggressive stance

 

[oliver]

Jacob,

I'm not sure I would want to stretch 205/55s and 225/50s onto 8s & 9s. You'd need to take advice on other tyre options to avoid fouling.

7s & 8s might be a better compromise, with lowered suspension.

15" wheels are a popular option for track use because, with lower profile tyres, its an easy way to lower the car and improve the gearing. Some people say that the car is more progressive at the limit on 15" wheels. Also, there are cheaper tyre options in 15" sizes.

 

[Guest]

It would be interesting to see if the car in 911&Porsche World really has 8s on the front as they are very hard to get hold of because the only 8s that fit on the front are 944 8s - see the chart below. A 911 8x16 *will not* fit on the front with any size tyre. The 944 8x16 is much more common in the US as more 944 Turbos came with them. Porsche NA also sold there stock of 944 8s some years ago at bargain prices - circa USD110 each. They now fetch circa USD 5-600 each. Good luck finding any in Europe. Even if you do, they still make clearance even tighter than a 7x16.

The easiest fit is 7x16 with 205/55x16 (or 205/50x16 if you want a slightly lower profile). However, even this will need some negative camber - say about 1 degree - and probably rolled arches. You can also run a 225/50x16 (or 225/45x16) on a 7. and this will almost certainly need rolled arches . Even so, I had some rubbing with just over 1 degree negative on the LHS. With 1.5 degrees neg I now seem ok, but I currently have 225/45s on one set and 205/55 on another and my brakes require a 5mm spacer - so its not quite std.

If you run 8x16 rears you can use a 225/50 or if you run a 225 on the front you can run a 245/45x16. The 245s are a little wide but they work/look ok. On the 9s you should run a 245/45 but a 225 is also possible though quite stretched.

Any increase in unsprung weight is far outweighed by the larger (actually better shaped) contact
patch and wider tracks. Even running 205s with 245s does not give greater understeer. Why? Because the front track is close to 2 inches wider and the 205 works so much better stretched on a 7 than a 6.

The turbo ran 7/9x16 until very late (like 1988/89 I think) when it moved to 8/9x16. The 8s or 9s work on the rear of our cars - I run them with 245/45s on 9s and 225/50s on 8s with 2.5 degrees neg and 14mm spacers either side and very stiff rear torsion bars. They never rubbed with the std suspension and without spacers and with the spacers they rubbed a tiny bit.

As always, YMMV - as all these cars a little different.

Richard

 

[Guest]

You can see how tight the 225/45 on a 7 is on the front and also the clearance with 245/45 on a 9 in this photo. I have posted plenty of other photos showing the car in corners with the suspension at maximum compression giving another perspective on clearance.

BTW, Andy, are you running a 225 on the 7x15 front rim. I found the 205/50 on a 7x15 just too small on a relatively heavy 3.2 compared to a 225 on a 16, which is physically a much bigger tyre. Works great on a lightweight RS though !

I also found track tyres in 15 inch sizes tough to come by. Evens 16s are difficult to get and for this reason alone I am thinking of 17s. If so, I may have a set of 7/8 or 7/9s for sale later in the year.

 

[Andy Tims]

Richard

I have stuck with 205/50 on the front. Was tempted by 225 for extra braking etc. but was advised by a few people incxluding Russell Lewis & Dunlop Motorsport that the 225 side wall would be "bulged out" slightly by being fitted to a 7" rim causing more movement than would be ideal.

You are right about limited choice - I have yet to try them on track, but I now have Dunlop D02G's front & 225/50 D01J's - Given 17" wheels you could get Dunlop SSR's - you have seen how much grip they can give from the wheel lift I was getting at Combe last year.

 

[Guest]

Just I note about the chart that I produced that Richard posted.

The 9 x 16 part number should be 911.362.119.00

I produced the chart in order that I could visualise what the optimum wheel sizes were for myself.

I was thinking of getting 9's for the rear (already had 8's) and some 7's for the front. The chart lets you see that there is not a lot of difference visually between 8's and 9's as the extra width is mostly inboard of the hub. However every little helps and I did get 7's and 9's which have fitted with out problems.

As Richard points out 944 8x16's will almost certainaly need the fender lip rolling, are pretty rare and expensive but the visual gain is greater than that for the 8 -> 9 jump on the rear.

Cheers

Andy

 

[Guest]

Yes, kudos to Andy for the chart.

Amazing how it has done the rounds. I first saw it on Pelican and thought it was a marvellous thing and have propagated it all over and ever since.

Andy's comments confirm my own thoughts that there is not really an ideal Fuchs front wheel for our car. A 7.5 or 8 that "stuck out" no more than the 7s would be ideal but does not exist. For most purposes the 7 is not bad though...

 

[Andy Tims]

Not sure if this helps, but I did originally have 17" Boxster wheels for track use with 225/45 & 245/40 tyres respectively. The car is 26mm lower than standard & I ran 26mm spacers front & 31mm rear.
No problems with rubbing the wheels arch lips, so you can get some pretty big rubber in there if you try. Not necessarily optimum in terms of looks / un-sprung weight though.

 

[Guest]

Rich

I'm new to the 3.2 world and am trying to understand the art of wheel fitment!!!!! I have just purchased a 3.2 coupe and want to preserve the mint fuchs alloys I have on it. I also fancy trying a set of more modern alloys to bring my car up to date. I have been told by numerous people that it is vital to get the offsets the same?????? how is this measured and can you teach me how to understand your table.

Do you have any idea of what alloy sizes fit and which wheels look the best....I want to stick with Porsche alloys, perhaps the 993 turbo rims??? what do you think

Thanks very much

Rob

P.S. I'm not in search of changing a completely original car!!!

 

[ClubSport 911]

you have seen how much grip they can give from the wheel lift I was getting at Combe last year.

[][]

 

[Andy Tims]

ORIGINAL: ClubSport 911

you have seen how much grip they can give from the wheel lift I was getting at Combe last year.

[][]

No really - absolutely no photoshopping involved.

 

[Andy Tims]

Rob

Find the wheels you like (often second hand ones in PP or on ebay) ask the sellers for the offset's (usually stamped near the valve) & then check with your nearest OPC or someone like Jasmine that they will fit & what (if any) spacers you might need.
NB The spacers can be fairly expensive.

 

[Guest]

Or post the question here. Once you are talking about specific wheels we can tell you what fits.

People have spent large portions of their lives trying to compile a list of what fits (slight exageration!) and it boils down to this:

1. Any genuine Porsche wheel pre-1990 will fit - though commonsense dictates that rear wheels can't generally be used on the front etc. Anything up to 9 inch wide fits on the rear and anything up to 7 inches wide fits on the front (plus some 8s will fit).

2. Any genuine Porsche wheel post-1989 will not fit without big honking spacers.

Aftermarket wheels in the pattern of post 1989 Porsche OE wheels have been made in the correct offsets to fit and are cheap but are generally considered inferior to genuine Porsche wheels - you gets what you pay for.

Richard

 

[Guest]

Andy, Richard

Ok here's the deal.......

I've been on a web site called design911 and have found cup1's, 2's and 3's replicas all with the same off-set information and wheel size (see below) . The site suggests the wheels will fit but I am still interested in knowing if these off-sets are correct for the car to match those originally intended.

Replica Wheel off-sets (for cup 1, 2, and 3's)

17inch CUP ALLOY 9J ET47 SINGLE WHEEL £ 131.50
17inch CUP ALLOY 9J ET15 SINGLE WHEEL £ 131.50
17inch CUP ALLOY 7.5J ET52 SINGLE WHEEL £ 118.00
17inch CUP ALLOY 7.5J ET23 SINGLE WHEEL £ 118.00

(they also do 18"s???)

My question is now which do we think are the best looking?????Take a look!!!!

www.design911.co.uk

To be honest I'm still a fan of keeping the car original but want to still update it, therefore i'm a little undecided, but would like to know your opinions.....?

I 've taken a picture of my 3.2 and placed the wheels on to the car so I can see what it looks like....its bodged admittedly but I think it gives an indication of were I'm going. I think the cup 3's are a bit too modern for the year of car and do not suit... what do you think?????

(Note: I tried to up load the picture files but they are too large)

Thanks fro yoiur help so far.....Its decision time!

Cheers rob

 

[Andy Tims]

ORIGINAL: robsterferian


My question is now which do we think are the best looking?????Take a look!!!!

In isolation I prefer the Cup II's but as to what they look like on the car, you really must make your own mind up - it's your cash.

 

[Guest]

Yes, they have offsets for pre-89 cars. I like Cup IIs same as Andy but prefer Fuchs personally.

If I couldn't have Fuchs, I quite like the look of BBS 3 piece racing wheels like many Porsche factory race cars came with. I dislike the cost though...