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Old 07-31-2011, 08:54 PM   #1
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Front tires and wheel liner clearance...

Was taking out the front bumper the other day to install grills in front of the radiators and noticed that with the wheel turned to the extreme left or right, the tire that is turned toward the centre of the car has only about 1 cm of clearance from the wheel liner.... I have the M030 ROW kit and am running on the 205 wide tires on 17".

Is this normal ? I was originally thinking of upgrading to larger front tires (on 17") or even go up to 18". But with such little clearance, I'm afraid that the tires are going to scrape against the wheel liner at extreme lock.

With the wheels in the straight ahead position, there is sufficient clearance, only looks scary at extreme lock.

I had checked my wheel liner and they seem to be installed properly with all the plastic studs in place. No signs of misalignment or bulging out. And my front rims, although they are the stock cayman type, are 17" and 55 offset which is the same as the originals. I do have 7mm spacers though.

Anyone noticed the same ?? Or do I have a problem ?


Last edited by shlim8; 07-31-2011 at 08:57 PM.
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Old 08-01-2011, 05:58 AM   #2
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When you go to larger wheels...

... the diameter of the tire stays the same.
That's why the larger the wheel, the lower the tire's profile.
That 1 cm clearance is fine and with the proper sized 18" tire the gap should be the same.
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Old 08-01-2011, 06:44 AM   #3
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One of my track day wheel sets is 255/40/17 all around. No rubbing at all in the front with a 5mm spacer. The car sits pretty low in front with PSS9s.
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Old 08-01-2011, 07:39 PM   #4
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Wow, 255/40-17 that's pretty wide....

There must be more space in there than I imagine !!! I'm thinking of trying only 225/45-17, which should be the same (almost) diameter, just wider.

What offset and rim size did you use with the 225/40-17 fronts ?
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Old 08-01-2011, 08:14 PM   #5
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225s will work on 7x17" wheels. 255s will work on 8.5x17" wheels. With stock suspension I didn't need a spacer for the 255s up front. With PSS9s a 5mm spacer does the trick. Keep in mind that 255 fronts are not really recommended for the street. If it rains the hydroplane speed will be pretty low.
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Old 08-01-2011, 08:32 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shlim8
Was taking out the front bumper the other day to install grills in front of the radiators and noticed that with the wheel turned to the extreme left or right, the tire that is turned toward the centre of the car has only about 1 cm of clearance from the wheel liner.... I have the M030 ROW kit and am running on the 205 wide tires on 17".

Is this normal ? I was originally thinking of upgrading to larger front tires (on 17") or even go up to 18". But with such little clearance, I'm afraid that the tires are going to scrape against the wheel liner at extreme lock.

With the wheels in the straight ahead position, there is sufficient clearance, only looks scary at extreme lock.

I had checked my wheel liner and they seem to be installed properly with all the plastic studs in place. No signs of misalignment or bulging out. And my front rims, although they are the stock cayman type, are 17" and 55 offset which is the same as the originals. I do have 7mm spacers though.

Anyone noticed the same ?? Or do I have a problem ?
If I'm following you correctly, the plastic liner inside the wheel well can actually be adjusted . There are different tabs or settings that will allow you to reposition it in order to gain more clearance . I discovered this in the course of installing my body kit .
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Last edited by Johnny Danger; 08-01-2011 at 08:34 PM.
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Old 08-04-2011, 06:34 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Danger
If I'm following you correctly, the plastic liner inside the wheel well can actually be adjusted . There are different tabs or settings that will allow you to reposition it in order to gain more clearance . I discovered this in the course of installing my body kit .
WHoa, that's good to hear ! I guess I was so busy rushing to put back the bumper and part of the liner that I didn't notice that.

Hmmm, I guess again this is part of the german engineer's mentality. I wonder what's the significant benefit of having adjustable wheel liners ? To reduce the amount of air between the tires and liner when smaller tires used ??

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