15" Wheel Fitment Help- Why Won't They Fit?!

[Bravoaloha]

Hey everybody!

I did a search but this is kind of a weird situation. I've wanted a set of 15" Minilites for some time and a set popped up locally that I bought.

FS: Minilite Gold 7x15 and 9x15 Wheels

15x7 et +13 and 15x9 et +4. Car is on 15x7 and 15x8 Fuchs currently. Granted, the wheels have some BIG Hoosier R7's on them (225/45 and 275/35) that I was going to use up at the track before mounting some street tires.

I mounted them up on my '86 Carrera and the tires stick out about 1/4"+ in the rear and more like a 1/3"+ up front. No way I can run them as is. Here is a pic of them on the PO's '86 Carrera..



I contacted the PO, he said he even ran the car with spacers. What am I missing? What could be different between our two cars of the same year? I don't know what kind of suspension/alignment he is running but I cant imagine any differences would push the wheels out this much. My dad also has an '86 and the Fuchs I'm running came off of his car and fit great. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[jac1976]

Camber?

[blucille]

Previous owner ran skinnier tires.

Offset of minilites isn’t ideal for widest tire choices, pushes the wheels too far outboard.

[Bravoaloha]

Tires are from the PO. The ones in that picture came on the wheels so its not that. They are so far out that I can't imagine camber is the issue. Camber is another issue I'm having with my car, I can only get about -1 degree on both sides but even if I could get -2 or -3 I cant imagine that would bring the wheels in 1/3-1/4"

I have a set of BFG Rival S's ready to go, 225/45 and 245/40 but I'd like to use up these R7's before mounting them (and I also want to be sure the wheels will fit with the smaller tires before I mount them)

Thanks guys!

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by Bravoaloha

Hey everybody!

I did a search but this is kind of a weird situation. I've wanted a set of 15" Minilites for some time and a set popped up locally that I bought.

FS: Minilite Gold 7x15 and 9x15 Wheels

15x7 et +13 and 15x9 et +4. Car is on 15x7 and 15x8 Fuchs currently. Granted, the wheels have some BIG Hoosier R7's on them (225/45 and 275/35) that I was going to use up at the track before mounting some street tires.

I mounted them up on my '86 Carrera and the tires stick out about 1/4"+ in the rear and more like a 1/3"+ up front. No way I can run them as is. Here is a pic of them on the PO's '86 Carrera..



I contacted the PO, he said he even ran the car with spacers. What am I missing? What could be different between our two cars of the same year? I don't know what kind of suspension/alignment he is running but I cant imagine any differences would push the wheels out this much. My dad also has an '86 and the Fuchs I'm running came off of his car and fit great. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Those wheel offsets are all wrong for that car, The lower numerically the ET is the more the wheel is pushed out and those are too low by 10 & 11mm respectively. There is more wiggle room in back than in front.

I don't know how the PO got away w/ them, extra negative camber helps a lot but doesn't explain it all, I suspect some disingenuous info from the PO was provided to speed the sale as there is no inherent difference between his car and yours(unless the blue car w/ wide fenders is actually the car those wheels were on.

For your car( '86 Carrera) 15x7 ET23.3 would be an aggressive standard fit w/ 225/45 tires and 9x15 ET12-15 w/ 245/40 tires

[rattlsnak]

We 'push out' rear fenders to fit 275s on the back all the time so I'm guessing he got that done somewhere

275 fits fine w/ the 9x15ET15 or 9.5Et19

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

We 'push out' rear fenders to fit 275s on the back all the time so I'm guessing he got that done somewhere

275 fits fine w/ the 9x15ET15 or 9.5Et19

My apologies, I hit edit instead of quote

I posted the folowing
275 fits fine w/ the 9x15ET15 or 9.5Et19

[gumba]

Switching to the early 912 32mm front hubs (32mm vs 48mm) will move the wheels in about 1/2” max. Depending on camber and tire size you may need to add a small spacer if the tires rub the shocks. I also removed the stock shock covers. With 1.5-2.0 neg camber should clear.

[Bill Verburg]

from the factory all '86 911 have the same hubs, while it is possible that earlier versions may have been fitted in front it doesn't explain the back

Here's a comparison of the various 911 front hubs

[Bill Verburg]

here's a comparison of 7 & 8 Fuchs o the above minilights, notre he f/s #s that come up in red showing that they project too far

[racer]

So. the white car in the top pic is the Previous Owner. Its pretty apparent that the front wheels are sticking out. Not so obvious that the rears are.

Do you have any pics of the wheels on Your car?

Guess it comes down to what "stock" means. Sometimes a car is in an accident and liberties are taken. Maybe shock towers are pulled in a bit at the top. Maybe the fender lips are trimmed/removed. Maybe a gentle "stretching" of the material etc. And yes, as Bill has mentioned, the Offsets are "wrong" to work your car based on the experiences of many. Ride height and suspension stiffness, camber etc may explain some of the fitment differences as well.

[Cory M]

Hoosiers run very wide. For example, a 205 Hoosier R7/A7 is often wider than most other brands 225, even when compared to other R-comps. Stack the wheels vertically next to your stack of BFG Rivals and compare. Also the BFG sizes you have are a fairly small diameter. I would swap the tires and check the fit.

[Bravoaloha]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the responses. Finally had a chance to mount them up and take some pictures. You can see they stick out pretty significantly in the front and rear. Measured both and its they stick out about 3/8" up front and in the rear. (2" mark is at the fender lip in the pictures).

My dad also happens to have an '86, I think I'm going to see what happens if I put them on there. All the offset info makes sense, but what I still can't wrap my head around is that theu fit on the PO's car. I don't want to mount up the brand new BFG's if they arent going to fit. The rears are about 3/4" narrower but the fronts are not significantly skinnier to where I think they will fit.

Thanks again everybody.

Rear







Front

[gumba]

It appears that the tires in your photo extend past the rim 1/4”+ more than the tires in the first photo.

[Bigtoe32067]

Could you possibly have spacers on your hubs that you didn’t know about?
I had spacers on one of 911’s that I didn’t even realize because they were stuck to the hub and looked like part of the hub.
Tony

[Bravoaloha]

Very annoyed to find these fit on my dad's '86 911 just fine.. Did some measuring and it appears that not only are the hubs (front) and rotors (rear) on my car are wider, but the rotors are pushed away from the body more in both the front and the rear. (See last four pics)

Does anyone have an explanation as to why the rotors would be pushed out further from the chassis? Hub width in the front makes *some* sense as I guess the PO changed them, and I guess rotor width in the rear does as well depending on what rotors PO purchased (brakes are stock), but all very odd to me. (then again, very normal to me to have unforeseen, ridiculous issues with something that should be so simple on this car)

Edit: Looking at the math for the rears and it doesn't add up to push my rear out more than my dad's. I will double check, but this has to be a mistake on my part. I remember finding at the time of measurement that the chassis was further away from the rotor on my dad's car than on mine.













Dad's white car front



My blue car front



Dad's white car rear



My blue car, rear