Rear rim/tire clearance question
 

I received my aftermarket carrera lights and PS2's tonight. :D

Rears are 47mm offsets, btw.

Brought them home and installed them before dinner, all excited to take the boxster out for a drive tonight, then decided it would be prudent to crawl under the car and insure nothing was rubbing inside before the maiden launch.

Wow. It sure is a tight fit in the back. I took my flashlight and my best guess is that I have about 3 or 4 mm clearance between the rubber and the strut on the driver's side, and the same on the passenger side, but in addition, there's a rod on the passenger side that's probably the e-brake actuator and it is about the same, 3/16th's inch away from the rubber.

My question is if this is enough space... Does the rubber and or wheel move or shift a lot under hard cornering enough to rub?

[clarification: Yeah, I know 97's aren't supposed to have 18's on them, and I am not planning to track the car with these rims on it, just drive around twisty roads and have some moderate driving fun, so please answer the question based on this information. Thanks!]

i had to tie my brake cables out of the way (they rubbed on one side only). the clearance to the strut is no problem. there is nothing between the strut and the wheel that can deflect (no rubber), so the clearance between the strut and the tire is essentially constant.

i think some company makes a clip specifically for the brake cables, but i can't remember who....

Randall,

This may sound like a dumb question, but did you look at the car when it was in the air or on the ground? The reason I ask is that my rears touch the control arms when it's in the air, but clear nicely when it's on the ground.

Randall,

I honestly don't know. Like Grizzly said (Happy B'day BTW), make sure you're looking at it fully loaded on the ground. Have you considered things like Driver/Passenger weight, Full Fuel Tank and their possible effect?

Some suspension systems may have that much motion in them while others do not. I never checked it on the Boxster, so I can only recommend that you take it for a test drive and see. To make it easier to determine, I'd apply some chalk or bright Crayon to any parts you suspect may rub. After the test drive, check to see if any of it was rubbed off. 3-4mm is a fairly healthy clearance and I suspect you'll be OK. Hope this helps...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

I checked the clearance under "normal" load... no passengers, but I do have a half tank of gas and the car is on the ground (not on a lift). I guess I can get my buddies to sit in the car while I crawl back under to give myself some peace of mind before my road trip this weekend.
:dance:

Everyone, these rims are absolutely fabulous looking. I've dreamed of having them since day one of ownership... getting rid of the Camaro ROH's that were on the car when I bought it was one of my first goals, but then every single thing that could go wrong with a Boxster went wrong and I've never had the money to spend before now...

I will take your advice, Jim and put some crayon on the strut and drive it around a little and see if it rubs. If it does, I guess I will buy some 5mm hubcentric spacers for the back and call it a day.

I'll take pix and post them when my colored wheel caps come in. I knocked out the black painted ones before mounting the wheels on the car since they have no pin holes for easy removal when they are on the car, and I won't photograph it without centers because that's just wrong :o

really? i checked both in the air and on the ground. what size tires are you running? wheel width? i'm assuming a 10" rear width; am i wrong?

randall - FYI, i played with different offsets and it looks to me like anything less than 44mm will rub the fender. i have heard of some people using 42mm, but this did not work for me. to achieve 44mm, you'd need 3mm spacers. not sure if they're made? 47mm seems to be the de facto standard for 10" rears on a box, though, so i'd be suprised if you had problems with that.

Hey Randall,

I had the same problem. I was so scared to even drive the car. I was pretty pissed and called the guy that I bought my rims from and he assured that this was okay. So just to make me happy he sent me 6mm or 7mm H&R spacers. I think that it's a good idea for you to also put a spacer. The 6mm spacer is not that big of a deal, you won't even really see the difference. But it made me feel safe driving.

Insite, they are indeed 10 inch rims. I'm feeling more comfortable about taking it for a spin tomorrow to see if it rubs now.

Just new rim owner's jitters, I guess! I'll let you all know what I discover either way.

Ohh sorry to clarify, that was the rear...7mm spacer.

The front i can just put a piece of cardboard upfront through the back of the wheel to the strut. I have no rubbing marks after 9000km on the inside rubber fenders. I know that if i try to take a turn in my drive way turning the wheel all the way it does rub. so i make sure not to turn it all the way. i take it easy and dont turn the wheel all the way to get out. this rarely happens that i have to turn the wheel all the way. I even drove up on a half ass curb to see if my wheel would touch the strut, and it didnt move a at all...meaning that the piece of cardboard still fit through the wheel to the strut. no need for front spacers, as long as you can get a piece of cardboard through.

Hope this helps.

Ha, I just put mine on and went like hell! I had a horrible ride though, lol, they forgot to send me the hub centric ring adapters so they were off center. But after that they were good.

Kronix, thanks for your info as well. I have yet to inspect the fronts because they seemed so good right off the bat.

Boggtown, you crack me up, you wild man. Throwing caution to the wind with one's Boxster is not something I would do. So why did you need spacers anyway?

They are very nice rims randall, I like how simple they look.

Congrats.

They're 9.5s with 275-30-19s. I don't have any great pictures of the rear showing the tire size and offset. This is about the best I can do.

Randall boggtown has the same rims as me...we had the same issues...

ohh n the tire and rims shop down the street told me that all i needed was a piece of paper to fit through the gap. cardboard was a bit tight but good enough.

I am pretty sure we needed spacers because they wanted the lip as big as possible so they moved the hub back as far as possible, hence we needed a 7mm spacer to set it away far enough so it didnt hit. BTW if you ever want the feeling of the good old days on the farm, get the wheels I got, use the stock bolts plus extended ones for the rear, and dont put on the ring adapters, and its just like your driving a tractor. But ya, I wish I could afford some PS2's, enjoy those for both of us Randall.

what size tire? 265/35?

yup, 265/35's

Yikes!
 

I just got the same set of rims as Randallneighbor with cheaper Falken tires. The rims landed yesterday and like the numbnuts I can sometimes be, I took off my old 17" rims/tires and put on the new 18" rims/tires, torqued the bolts down to 97 ft/lbs, and away I rode....

I just caught up to this thread this morning and sure enough, I do have a cardboard-width clearance between the wheel and struts, but I am rubbing on the drivers-side brake cable housing, rubbed off some of the insulation. I will get a tie to pull back the cable housing a little.

I did have a question about centering the wheels, as the new wheels do not have the centering flange built into the wheel. Is there any trick to centering wheels that lack a flange? I just tried to line up the wheels on the bolt-holes as best I could, then slowly tightened them up.

Finally, because I have a modest clearance from the struts, I assume I do not need spacers, I perfer not to use them if I can avoid it, thanks,

Ed

Jim has a great idea here with checking for clearance. I am going to throw in my $0.02 and say that instead of using chalk or Crayon go buy some clay from somewhere and put it on the parts you're worried about rubbing. In one of my previous lives we used clay for various clearance issues particularly with fender wells when the car is in full jounce. After running the car at max handling we were able to measure actual clearance. If the clearance was less than 5mm (rule of thumb and not some magical calculation) we would make adjustments.

BTW - If you do go this route make sure you clean the surface first as the clay was a little tricky. :)

:chicken: I chickened out, my fellow Boxster owners. :chicken:

I called Automotion and bought a set of H&R Trak+ Hubcentric 7mm spacers and 10-52mm lugs, and they'll be here tomorrow.

I cannot fathom getting into my boxster for a 4 hour trip on Friday afternoon and discovering I have a tire/rim rub issues along the way, nor can I fathom driving the trip with my old wheels! :D

randall - this will take you to a 40mm offset. i don't think this is enough; you'll rub your fenders.

Insite, don't tell me that! Do you think I'll now have problems on the outside vs the inside? Arrrgh!

Well, they come in tonight and I'll put them on, drive around and see what happens and report back.

If I rub the fenders, I'll put them on the front wheels so as not to completely waste the $150 I just spent.

Randall, don't worry about a thing. The 7mm spacers will give you the comfort that you are looking for. I went through this ordeal also, and it really scared me also. All you need to do is clear that strut by a cardboard thickness. The 7mm spacer will give you that security. My front i can just slide a piece of cardboard through and thats all you need to clear.

Have a fun trip on the new rims.

The rims already stick out, you will not notice the 7mm spacer at all.

I ran home at lunch and installed the spacers. Kronix, I can actually tell they're on there as the tire and wheel now fill out the wheel well nicely!

I have no more clearance issues in the back, and it appears that I will not have any rubbing on the outside fenders either... but I haven't gone through massive potholes and tried that out yet... I'll let you all know if I do discover any fender rubbing.

glad it seems to be working out. when are you gonna post some pics? we've got to see these bad boys.