Wheel and body alignment.

Hi all,

A little advice if poss...

I ahve 225 front and 315 rear tryes on 17" rims. I have a Standard Borrani rear clip.

Can anyone help me with setting these up to look "correct" in the arches. What gap do you have from the wheel arches to the tyres vertically, and how far inset are they from the wheel arch, or are they in line vertically with the edge of the wheel arch?

I may start to get body alignment sorted soon while I wait for some parts I just ordered from Fran.

Hope this makes sense and thanks for your help guys,

Graham.
 
Graham:
I have a similar tire width on my chassis, and I would say there is approx 1/2" above the tread as viewed from the side. This sounds too close, but the tread width is narrower than the overall tire profile so there is ample room there as the rear bodywork is slightly wider than the overall.
I would think a trial fit at ride height will show if there are any problems, and you may need to adjust your ride height to get the look you want.
My rear bodywork has an inner panel in the arches so the vertical clearance decreases rapidly as you move towards the outside of the bodywork. Here is a photo that shows my trial fit.
Most of the side profiles I have seen show a similar amount of clearance between the top of the tire and the bodywork.
Hope some of this helps.
Cheers
Phil
 

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Thanks Phil and Tom - it all helps!

Tom,

I will use your method for aligning the suspension geometry - it is logical and helps that you have an RCR too.

A quick question - Whilst going through this process, how did you determine how far out from the chassis the wheels should project, or did you do this by trial and error with the clips roughly in place?

Thanks guys,

Graham.
 
A quick question - Whilst going through this process, how did you determine how far out from the chassis the wheels should project, or did you do this by trial and error with the clips roughly in place?

Graham.

This far out
PICT2296.jpg


No just kidding.

I focused on getting them centered within my chassis reference lines.
my reco:
set the lower a arm with the inner heimjoint fully ( not bottoming it out) screwed in. Also fully screw in the outer forward heimjoint, than adjust your toe (neutral) with th rearward heim joint. then set the upper control arm to get a neutral camber. During this process always adjust your radius rods to achieve the upper and lower control arm centerlines parallel to the chassis crossmember. All this adjustments have to be done with the suspension set at you desired ride height ( i described this in my post).
So basically you end up with a good basic setting with neutral toe and neutral camber and as much as possible located inside the body.
Mount your wheels and you can reference your rear clip fit with measurements. I would not bother at this stage with having the wheels outward as much as possible. You always can do this later by adjusting the heimjoints of the lower a arm and upper control arm.
By doing it my way you also can check the clearance you have when the wheel travels through its full suspension movement. Just jack up your car at rideheigth (I used wooden blocks below the chassis cut to 5,25" in the rear and 4,25" in the front) than remove the springs but remount the shock and than jack up the rear wheel till full compression and check for clearance ( of course you do all this after your have alignened and positioned your body panells)

TOM
 
Graham:
If you know the track width of your suspension you can check before mounting the bodywork to see if it will fit.
I have a track of 56", wheels are 15 X14 wide with a 4 7/8 backspace, that leaves me with 9 1/8 at each wheel plus my track. Roughly 18 1/4 plus 56 or 74 1/4". The tread is 13" wide so I have additional 1" clearance so it works out to 73 1/4". I don't know your dimensions but I am sure you can work it out easily.
As Tom mentioned suspension adjustments will alter this dimension especially at the top of the tire as you will probably be running some negative camber, but not much.
Take your measurements and follow Tom's setup proceedure and I think you will be OK.....make sure that you are on a level surface.
Cheers
Phil
 
Hello Phil

I run 15" Pirellis on my 40. I really like what I can see of your wheel/tyre rear arch set up. Please give us details of your tyres ( front and rear). All I can see is that they are Avons
 
Rob:
I don't want to hijack Graham's thread but if its ok with him I will post tire and wheel sizes later today. I can take actual dimensions off the chassis and bodywork and post them....what say Graham?
Cheers
Phil
 
Rob:
I don't want to hijack Graham's thread but if its ok with him I will post tire and wheel sizes later today. I can take actual dimensions off the chassis and bodywork and post them....what say Graham?
Cheers
Phil

Fill your boots Phil my old chum!

Cheers,

Graham.
 
Thanks Graham.

Rob:
Here are dimensions I took off my setup
Rear: Width across tread outside to outside 74.25"
Width at outside of tire (widest point) 77"
Wheels 15 X14 BRM style with 4.875" backspacing
Tires on rear Avon 12.5/27.0-15*
Approx equal to a 335 X 35 X 15

Width across rear bodywork at inside of lip is 79"

Front: Width across tread outside to outside 67 .25"
Width at outside of tire (widest point) 69"
Wheels 15 X 10 BRM style with 4.875" backspacing
Tires on front Avon 9.1/23.5-15
Approx equal to a 245 X 35 X 15

Width across front bodywork inside of wheel opening is 69"

As you can see the bodywork is pretty close, and I wanted the wide rear same as the Gulf spec.
* One note on the rear tires, the actual diameter of the tires is about 25.5" inflated. They measure at 25" with full weight on them so I have suspension set at ride height of 5" and lower wishbones are fairly level with a slight upward angle to the outside.
Obviously one can run only a limited amount of negative camber before experiencing abnormal tire wear. I plan to run 1/2 deg. negative.
I hope some of these dimensions are helpful
Cheers
Phil
 
Thanks Phil for the very comprehensive info. And sorry Graham for the hijack. In my opinion the side view -stance, attitude and wheel arch fit of GT 40s is a big give away for poor replicas, CAV ( unless they've fixed the problem) being a good example.This assumes you want a 60's look car and 15" wheels.

That being said all GT 40s are/were different especially in the rear arch area, depending largely on tyre size. Just look at the pics in The Ford that beat Ferrari.

I agree with Tom 's point about getting the body to fit the wheels.

I have 15x345 Pirellis on the rear and far prefer the look of Phil's Avons.
 
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