1988 Porsche Targa Wheels & Tires

[chaseuone]

Looking to replace my original wheels & the tires.
Any Suggestions on how big I can go on the rears & the fronts set.
16 x 8 Fronts ? 16 x 10 Rears or can I do 17"
I don't want to do any modifications other than spacers.

I appreciate all the suggestions from the experts.

[Marc718B]

Would also be interested in this.


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[AG81]

17 x 7 fronts (et 23) with a 205/50/17
17 x 8 rears (et 10) with a 255/40/17

My 88 - NO SPACERS.

'85 OUTLAW // Build Thread

[Ayles]

I don't think 10" will work without a few mods. For example you will need the high clearance oil lines from Elephant Racing and likely have to shave down the spring plate bolts. The wheels I saw were Fikse FM5 3 piece and built specifically for this purpose. I do not think this is possible any other way.

[darrin]

lots has been said on this topic over hte years - suggest you search here and on google a bit too.

Bill Verburg is a great source of info/clarification on this too.

Highest level, depends on what wheels you want to use and offsets available.

I chose to stick with fuchs and swapped my stock 16x6 front and 16x7 rear fuchs for 16x7 front and 16x8 rear fuchs (while 951 offset 16x8 might work up front, you won't be able to go with 911 offset 16x8s without modification to the front fenders -- Similarly, I believe 16x9 is as wide as you can go in the rear, but 16x9 have tire availability issues).

I still run the same tire sizes (205/55-16 front and 225/50-16 rear) but the tires sit flatter on the wheels. These are the same sizes run on early 930s -- later 930s went with a 16x9 wheel, but that requires a 245/45-16 tire and there are VERY few options still available in this size (there are a variety of performance options available in the tire size I continue to use). The only issue you might run into going this route is the possibility of rubbing the outer edge of the front tire against your front fender. This happens to some cars and with some specific tires but can be conclusively resolved by carefully rolling the front fender lips in.

You could also switch over to aftermarket 17" wheels which open some different possibilities. Since the tire sidewall height factors into ride/compliance (and our 911s suspensions were not designed with 17" wheels in mind), I chose to stick with the 16" fuchs -- many others have enjoyed switching to 17" wheels and fitment posts should be easy to find.

Finally, if you're simply looking to for your wheels to better fill out your fenders, the cheapest solution might be to simply go with spacers and stock 16x6 front / 16x7 rear fuchs. Adding 1" (?) spacers would get you a comparable look to the 16x7 / 16x8 fuchs combo at a small fraction the price.

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by chaseuone

Looking to replace my original wheels & the tires.
Any Suggestions on how big I can go on the rears & the fronts set.
16 x 8 Fronts ? 16 x 10 Rears or can I do 17"
I don't want to do any modifications other than spacers.

I appreciate all the suggestions from the experts.

assuming you have a std Carrera 6/7x16 setup on the car now here are 2 possible alternate setups, I chose RE71s for all to reduce confusion and because they are among the stickiest available

An efficient one, could be made more efficient w/ a lighter 7 or 7.5" front wheel set, this one actually nets you a little more torque for acceleration


A maxed one, I'd only do this one if I had more motor than a stock 3.2, this one loses a little torque from acceleration to turn the wheels


The ETs below work w/ 15 to 18's
In front 8 can be fitted W/ ET25 to 31 I chose ETs above from that range, ET25 gives less room at the lip ET31 more

In back 9.5 ET19 is the max I've ever fitted, I have seen 10 but it's not easy or straightforward and entails to much compromise for my taste, 9ET15 is the more comfortable easy fit.

Heavier wheels or tires would reduce the torque available for acceleration, The particular wheels I choose are very light and expensive

There are many other ways to go depending on specific goals, for instance if you want sparkling acceleration & better grip 15s is the way to go

[chaseuone]

Originally Posted by Bill Verburg

assuming you have a std Carrera 6/7x16 setup on the car now here are 2 possible alternate setups, I chose RE71s for all to reduce confusion and because they are among the stickiest available

An efficient one, could be made more efficient w/ a lighter 7 or 7.5" front wheel set, this one actually nets you a little more torque for acceleration


A maxed one, I'd only do this one if I had more motor than a stock 3.2, this one loses a little torque from acceleration to turn the wheels


The ETs below work w/ 15 to 18's
In front 8 can be fitted W/ ET25 to 31 I chose ETs above from that range, ET25 gives less room at the lip ET31 more

In back 9.5 ET19 is the max I've ever fitted, I have seen 10 but it's not easy or straightforward and entails to much compromise for my taste, 9ET15 is the more comfortable easy fit.

Heavier wheels or tires would reduce the torque available for acceleration, The particular wheels I choose are very light and expensive

There are many other ways to go depending on specific goals, for instance if you want sparkling acceleration & better grip 15s is the way to go

Bill, will I be safe to say 16 X 8 fronts 16 x 9 rears
What size tires would you recommend ?

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by chaseuone

Bill, will I be safe to say 16 X 8 fronts 16 x 9 rears
What size tires would you recommend ?

It depend on the ET and tires, 8 ET25 is the lowest ET that can be used w/ say a 225, some people have crammed a Fuchs 8ET23.3 w/ a 225/45 x16 tire in the front but it's not at all a happy fit, lots of extra work involved and suspension restrictions involved.

If you want to stay w/ Fuchs 7ET23.3 w/ a 205/55 x16 tire is as aggressive as I would use and even the can be awful close to the lip, again depending on ride height suspension spec and alignment.

Here' the max Fuchs 16 set up that would need the least extra work, on the left is a std 6 & 7 x16 205/55 & 225/50 setup, on the right is Fuchs 7ET23.3 w/ 205/55 & 9ET15 w/ 245/45 x16 tires, you get a slight boost in acceleration, though not as much as w/ an efficient set of 17s. I don't know that the RE11 are still available in those sizes, which is a reason many, myself included went to 17s


This is a maxed out 8 & 9.5 x17 w/ 225/45 & 255/40 x17

[chaseuone]

Originally Posted by Bill Verburg

It depend on the ET and tires, 8 ET25 is the lowest ET that can be used w/ say a 225, some people have crammed a Fuchs 8ET23.3 w/ a 225/45 x16 tire in the front but it's not at all a happy fit, lots of extra work involved and suspension restrictions involved.

If you want to stay w/ Fuchs 7ET23.3 w/ a 205/55 x16 tire is as aggressive as I would use and even the can be awful close to the lip, again depending on ride height suspension spec and alignment.

Here' the max Fuchs 16 set up that would need the least extra work, on the left is a std 6 & 7 x16 205/55 & 225/50 setup, on the right is Fuchs 7ET23.3 w/ 205/55 & 9ET15 w/ 245/45 x16 tires, you get a slight boost in acceleration, though not as much as w/ an efficient set of 17s. I don't know that the RE11 are still available in those sizes, which is a reason many, myself included went to 17s


This is a maxed out 8 & 9.5 x17 w/ 225/45 & 255/40 x17

So no spacers or additional work to have the 8 & 9.5 x17 w/ 225/45 & 255/40 x17?
I am looking at Turbo twist rims

[darrin]

chaseuone -- which car? Sasha or Natasha? Looks like Natasha is running 15x7 front and 15x8 rear? Believe there are some interesting lower profile tire options available for this wheel combo (believe they're track-focused tho) that could both improve your acceleration (smaller wheel improves acceleration at the expense of higher revs on acceleration) and handling (lower profile tire and "R" compound tires are quite sticky) -- if you want additional info, search for 15 inch tire options on pelican

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by chaseuone

So no spacers or additional work to have the 8 & 9.5 x17 w/ 225/45 & 255/40 x17?
I am looking at Turbo twist rims

No they fit fine but it's not something that I would recommend for everyone

993? 996? there are multiple versions of tt wheels

The ones that would be easiest to fit on an SC/Carrera are the 17" Carrera wheel, 7x17ET55 996.362.124.00 & 9ET55 996.362.128.00
These wheels would need ~ 28mm+/- spacers in front and 40mm+/- spacers in back, if you went that way 215/45 & 245/40 tires would be the way to go

The 18" 993 tts are 8ET52 993.362.136.00 & 10ET65 993.362.140.01 996 tt will be similarly sized The 10 would be extremely difficult to fit as the backspace max of 6" forces a front space on 4.72" which is too large, max is ~4.5"

There are some 993 wheels in 16 that would also work, a friend has some 7ET55 & 9ET70 on his Carrera 993.362.114.00 & 993.362.118.01 These look like the RS Speedlines on my 993, very nice but again you would need some large spacers

All in all it's best to use wheels w/ the correct ET for the chassis, Braid, Maxilight and Euromeister have some Fuchs look alikes that work fine, Fikse, BBS, Ruf(Speedline), and others have other options that fit.

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by darrin

chaseuone -- which car? Sasha or Natasha? Looks like Natasha is running 15x7 front and 15x8 rear? Believe there are some interesting lower profile tire options available for this wheel combo (believe they're track-focused tho) that could both improve your acceleration (smaller wheel improves acceleration at the expense of higher revs on acceleration) and handling (lower profile tire and "R" compound tires are quite sticky) -- if you want additional info, search for 15 inch tire options on pelican

Correct 15s are another way to and have some real benefits, but again not everyone will like the 15s, mostly because of how low the cars get.

[chaseuone]

Originally Posted by Bill Verburg

Correct 15s are another way to and have some real benefits, but again not everyone will like the 15s, mostly because of how low the cars get.

Bill This tire & wheel issues is driving me nuts.
I really want 16 x 8 fronts & 16 x 10 Rears
What tires would make that real.
Am I making a mistake 16 X 10 on the Rears or should I do just 9

I am not wheel or tire literate in anyway, I like the way Sasha looks, she looks like she's hugging the road with a lot of tire & Natasha looks skinny on the Tires & not so much.


Thank You....

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by chaseuone

Bill This tire & wheel issues is driving me nuts.
I really want 16 x 8 fronts & 16 x 10 Rears
What tires would make that real.
Am I making a mistake 16 X 10 on the Rears or should I do just 9

I am not wheel or tire literate in anyway, I like the way Sasha looks, she looks like she's hugging the road with a lot of tire & Natasha looks skinny on the Tires & not so much.


Thank You....

Here's your decision tree


Pick tires first, as I mentioned above the wheel wells are not unlimited, for the back of an SC/Carrera 280mm is the max tire width, and even that only if the wheel perfectly centers the tire and additional clearance work is done on both sides. You also need to consider the sapping effect of tall tires, every 1" of extra tire height costs ~12lb-ft loss of torque available for acceleration, this is quite noticeable. In addition taller tires are heavier tires this cause additional losses.

There is no need for really big tires on a stockish SC/Carrera, especially so for street use. The factory was fin w/ 225/50 x16, 245/45 x16 is about as big as you really want and it's a little shorter than the 225/50

Looking at the entire universe of street 16" tires, you only reasonable choices are 245/45 or 225/50 or 225/45 everything else is too tall. The 225/50 max wheel is an 8, 225/45 max wheel is an 8.5 and 245/45 max wheel is a 9

now choose the ET say you want 245/45 on a 9, ET 15 is the most common as that is what the 9" 930 Fuchs are, If you go custom ET or use spacers there is room to sneak that down a bit by a few mm.

You will want a matching front if using Fuchs the only good choice is 7ET23.3 w/ 205/50 or 205/55 or possible 225/45

If going to 17s the the 245/40 or 255/40 are the rear choices on 9 or 9.5 w/ matching fronts on 7.5 or 8. The 245/40 would have minimal effect on torque the 255/40 a little more effect

[darrin]

Chaseuone -- keep in mind that Bill's looking at this all from a racer's perspective -- extracting the most performance that he can out of a 911, with looks/aesthetics being secondary (at best).

Sounds like you're primarily interested in having Natasha's look better compliment that of Sasha. Easiest/most straightforward way to do that would be to pull Sasha's wheels to find part/model info and find the same wheels/tires for Natasha.

Or, instead of focusing on the overall width of your wheels/tires, instead look at other ways to optimize the characteristics you like about Sasha on Natasha -- your garage photos suggest that Sasha may be sitting a bit lower than Natasha and Sasha's wheels/tires also seem to come a lot closer, horizontally, to its fender lips than natasha. Get Natasha lowered to the same specs as Sasha and add spacers to Natasha's wheels to bring its tires out similar to Sasha and you'd be a lot closer -- only real way to aesthetically "notice" the width of Natasha's tires would be from the ground (i.e. it would be hard to tell you're running the same width tires with spacers) and it'd be a lot easier (and cheaper) to experiment with spacers to get the right look than struggling to get fatter tire/wheel combos to work.

My one caveat here is how much of the "look" difference stems from the different height wheels/tires your two cars are running -- presume Natasha's on 15" fuchs and sasha's on 17" aftermarkets. Again, easiest would be to simply replicate on Natasha what already works on Sasha -- but if you want to change it up, understanding the spacer width and offset dimensions of Sasha's wheels should make it (relatively) straightforward to come up with a complimentary look for Natasha.

[Bill Verburg]

Since I haven' t seen the 2 different cars it's hard to comment, You had some png's above but this site can't handle them, perhaps convert to jpg or gif and retry?

No matter what the decision tree above is what you need to be thinking

15, 16 17 or 18s there is only going to be a limited choice of a few tires that work front and rear on the wheels that can be fitted.

[darrin]

Bill -- fyi, was looking at his garage

Sasha -- http://forums.pelicanparts.com/images/dto_garage/users/191365/46132.jpg

Natasha -- http://forums.pelicanparts.com/images/dto_garage/users/191365/46144.jpg

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by darrin

Bill -- fyi, was looking at his garage

Sasha -- http://forums.pelicanparts.com/images/dto_garage/users/191365/46132.jpg

Natasha -- http://forums.pelicanparts.com/images/dto_garage/users/191365/46144.jpg

Just guessing but the black cars looks to have aftermarket 17" twists, probably 7ET23+/- or 7.5 ET26+/- w/ 205/50 & 255/40 tires

the red one appears to have
16" Fuchs 7ET23.3 & 8 ET10.6 or 9 ET15 tires are probably 205/55 & 225/50 or 245/45 depending on the wheels

[RPV911]

Originally Posted by AG81

17 x 7 fronts (et 23) with a 205/50/17
17 x 8 rears (et 10) with a 255/40/17

My 88 - NO SPACERS.

'85 OUTLAW // Build Thread

I almost did this but I got away with 17x9 in the rears. I went with spacers up front, only about a 1/4’ to clear my front 930 brakes.