CMC Wide Body Wheels - Request for help

They are polished aluminum , custom made and available from Vintage Speedsters

Alan,

Thank you.

Regards,

Steve Vacker

And just to get you thinking a little more, a 17" X 10" wide rim on the rear is one helluva big (wide) rim and may not fit on a swing-arm suspension.  It'll take a lot of spare horsepower just to turn those wheels/tires.  You might wish to think about something narrower for both front and rear, like 6"-7" front and 7"-8" rear, but with a proper offset to properly fit in your wheel wells and look "right".  

Hi Gordon.   Thanks for the advice.    Do you have a wide body?     I really like the look of the red car and would like to know what size rims and tires are on the car.      I am not too worried about HP as I am just going to cruise around the neighborhood in the car.   

Gordon's car:

Yeah, my car's a CMC widebody - looks like the same body as the red one.  I used to have original Fuchs all around:  7" rears with 225's on them and I loved them with 6" on the front with 205's.  Running a 2,110 it seemed to have plenty of "go".  I traded the rears for another pair of 6" rims and now run 205's all around so I can rotate them - plenty of tire for the wheels and car and the look from the rear, while no longer "YUGE!", the tires are still pretty wide.

Looking at the red car photo, the rims look like the repro wide rims that VS sells on some of their cars.  They're dished out a couple+ inches so they don't need spacers and, IIRC, are 7" or 8" wide.  Kirk may have wider ones, I don't know.

gn

Gordon,

Thanks for the info.    Your car looks great!

Regards,

Steve Vacker

Steve if you can pull it off getting the tires out to the edge of the fender wells looks best on these cars in my opinion - like the red one you posted at the top. You'll have to pay attention to offset on the wheels you purchase. Take your time man.

Yup, take your time.  There are several dimensions to consider; nearness of the tire to the wheel well lip on the outside, nearness of the tire to the spring plates on the inside, overall diameter of the rim, overall diameter of the tire you wish to use and, of course, the offset of the mounting flange to the rim centerline (whether the rim sits inward or outward versus the hub.  All of those get juggled to get you where you want to be.  D

And don't forget that if the car sits really low and you're running 17" (or larger) rims, the outside edge of the tire will hit the inside of the rear wheel well as it slopes down from the rear cowl to the fender lip, somewhere along the line when you "bottom out" the rear suspension.  This is less expected on the red car with the lower-profile tires than on my car with a little more tire outside of the rim.  That can be minimized by raising the rear of the car or, if that's not cool then maybe coil-over rear shocks to assist the rear torsion bars but either solution might make the ride harsher.  (but if you run "rubber-band" low-profile tires it'll ride a bit harsher, too.)

17's are to big and heavy for a speedster in my opinion. Stick with 16's max.

Thanks guys for all the good info!

Bill,

Could you please let me know what size front and rear on the black car?    This is exactly what I want for my wide body.     Rim size front and rear,  tire size front and rear and offset front and rear.    I now know the rims come from Vintage speedster (Kirk)

Thanks again to all !

regards

Steve Vacker

Speedy1 posted:

Thanks guys for all the good info!

Bill,

Could you please let me know what size front and rear on the black car?    This is exactly what I want for my wide body.     Rim size front and rear,  tire size front and rear and offset front and rear.    I now know the rims come from Vintage speedster (Kirk)

Thanks again to all !

regards

Steve Vacker

Sorry, not my car. Just wanted to show you another angle and how Huge they look. Call VS...

Thanks for all the advice guys.   I appreciate it.

After looking at the black car picture again, the wheels do look too large.    I think you are correct I will consider 16" instead.     I do like the dished out look.

Regards,

Steve 

Look for a set of Fuchs and you won't regret it. I'm hording three sets, all 16" x 6" & 7".

crhemi (Bill) poboiinhawaii posted:

Look for a set of Fuchs and you won't regret it. I'm hording three sets, all 16" x 6" & 7".

 

I DO have a MINT set of Al REED restored FUCHS/15 inch from my IM6 that I might be willing to part with.......

crhemi (Bill) poboiinhawaii posted:

Look for a set of Fuchs and you won't regret it. I'm hording three sets, all 16" x 6" & 7".

 

 

crhemi (Bill) poboiinhawaii posted:

Look for a set of Fuchs and you won't regret it. I'm hording three sets, all 16" x 6" & 7".

 

I DO have a MINT set of Al REED restored FUCHS/15 inch from my IM6 that I might be willing to part with.......

The flares are different on the VS vs a CMC too.  The ones on black VS will surely hit on big road bumps.

Welcome to our little group, Steve. Listen to Gordon, here- 16" wheels with 6's or 7's on the front and 8's on the back. For tires, 195/55- 16's (24.3" tall) or 205/50's (24") would be good choices for the front, as either will fill the wheelwell, are more than enough tire (for handling) and anything wider will be too heavy for the suspension to control properly (not to mention slightly heavier steering and I would think faster wear on parts, as the elves at Wolfsburg simply never envisioned their design ever dealing with all that weight). On the back, 225/50's (24.7" tall) on 7's or (preferably) 8's, or 245/45's on 8's would look great.

The sizes for the front are a touch short for accurate speedometer reading (kind of a misnomer here, as we are talking about VW speedos, and they are anything but accurate!) but I'm not sure anything much taller wouldn't have clearance issues. Going too much taller on the back (from the stock 25" tall tire) will make the overall gear ratios taller and you may not like what it does to acceleration, as well as making it harder to keep the car 'low to the ground'. 9" rims with the 245's would be really cool, but I think backspacing/offset would have to be 'just right'. I don't know if anybody here has done 9's on the back of their flared tub.

I'm a fan of Fuchs alloys on Speedsters, so of course I think 16's would make your car look bitchen', but that's only my opinion. As nice as the wheels Banzai (sorry, Banzai, don't know your first name) has, it's hard to get anything that wide in 15" tires any more, and I think his combo (6's and 7's) are more suited to a classic bodied Speedster. His 7's have the extra width to the inside (a la the uber rare and ultra expensive 911R rear wheels), which may sit the wheel/tire too far inside the wheelwell for your taste. Great way to get a wider tire on the back of a regular Speedster, though. I'm surprised there hasn't been more interest.

Hope this helps. Al

PS- As for Gordon's taking off the 225's and putting 205's all around (so he can rotate the tires- really?) This is potentially a fine, high performance machine!

Gordon- 

                 You're a Poopiehead!

_{(it never gets old!)}

Yeah, I know......  But I had been chasing a rumble for a while at that time and decided to go with same-sized rims to help isolate the source.  It didn't work, but years later I discovered road force wheel balancing, instead.  

The 7" rears with 225's on them, along with 3/4" anti-sway bars front and rear and Koni shocks (or maybe Bilsteins back then - can't remember), would not let go, no matter how hard I tried on a couple of tracks.  You could feel the limit of the sidewall flex and after that it just held on with no indication of oversteer up to the limits of my courage.  Other, more powerful cars were left behind (until the next straight stretch) while it just carved through the turns.  I was running Continental 50-series back then - decent tires, but it took LOTS of weights to balance them.

Thanks for all the help guys!

regards

Steve

WOLFGANG posted:

The flares are different on the VS vs a CMC too.  The ones on black VS will surely hit on big road bumps.

I'm not sure what you are saying here Wolfgang, but I've had several Vintage Super Widebodies with the typical custom Vintage 17" wheels and they didn't hit on big road bumps.

CMC flares look almost added on at the wheel well opening so the flare doesn't blend/extend up into the fender opening. This limits tire size and vehicle lowering as the tires will hit the upper fiberglass wheel arch.

CMC -

VS  -

I actually fabricated a wooden jig to get as accurate measurements as possible and then squeezed 245/35 on light weight aluminum 17 X 8 's all four corners.  Custom 6061 aluminum spacers and a bit of inner fender lip shaving.

He, He, He...

I see.  So you meant the Vintage wheels would hit if used on a CMC and I think you're right. 

Do it right Troy.  Nothing ruins the look of a fatbody speedy quicker than inset tires. Push them out as far as possible. 

Just one man's opinion.

Jerome Smith posted:

I actually fabricated a wooden jig to get as accurate measurements as possible and then squeezed 245/35 on light weight aluminum 17 X 8 's all four corners.  Custom 6061 aluminum spacers and a bit of inner fender lip shaving.

He, He, He...

Jerome;

Can you describe the jig you made?

Art

I can see that your cat/machinist was just plain worn out after making those wheel spacers....

The jig was nothing special.  I used a piece of 3/4 MDF, maybe 6" wide  X 10-12" long, basicallyy the length needs to be long enough to match the radius of the largest tire you think will fit.  Cut a hole near one end the size of the center boss that the wheel locates on and holes for a couple lugs.  Once bolted up you use the back side of the MDF as a datum to get your back spacing dimension and check for tire width clearance all around.  I tried using an old wheel but the 6" wide jig was much easier to get accurate numbers.

Gordon Nichols posted:

I can see that your cat/machinist was just plain worn out after making those wheel spacers....

He was a stray that started showing up around the time I received the kit.  Not long after that photo was taken we brought him in.  He's still kicking, although he getting grouchy in his old age.

Not unlike many of you, I'm sure.

Not me that's doing it Jerome, but I agree.  Push them out. 

@Jerome Smith

Thanks Jerome.

I appreciate all the good advice.  

 I spoke with Kirk at VS who tells me I should use 17" x 8" rims with a 3.5" offset on the front and rear on my wide body CMC.      I am planning on purchasing the same rims as Kirk has custom made.   I believe they are used on the red car at the top of the first post.     I am still trying to find out how some of the wide body cars I see on line with the same rims have what looks like much wider rims on the rear.    Does anyone know how the guys are using much wider (deeper) rear rims?     See the red car and silver cars higher up in this train of post.     Are they using a different suspension other than a VW chassis?

I have a 65 VW chassis and CMC wide body     I have disk brakes on front and rear.      I do not have a IRS rear suspension.

regards

Steve Vacker

The top two cars looks like the rims may be the same front and back.    I assume they are made at VS.     I like the gray car rims the best and they look like they are larger in back      The black car rear rims looks like they are larger in the rear.   The black cars rear rims are a little too wide for me.       Does anyone know if I can use the wider rear rims on my CMC 1965 VW?

This is good reading. VS wheels seems to be the choice?  Vintage decided to move and wonder if the wheels are still available and what the cost was for their wheels. 

Also their are “flared” and “super wide body” would the wheel be the same !

thanks for all the info. @Speedy1 did you end up with VS wheels. 

Happy New Year to all

The depth of the flares increases from "Flared" to "Widebody" to "Super Wide Body".

Just by eyeballing them in photos, it looks like about 2" width is added for each one.

You could run progressively deeper dish on the wheels from one model to the next, and I remember one guy on here was looking at 10" wide rims, but that is a LOT of wheel/rubber to move around - you would need a robust engine, too.  

Lots of 8" wide wheels on Wides and Supers, though, just figure out what you need for an offset from the hub to fit within the wheel well and go for it.  Vintage used to have several different widths to cover all applications and had them locally made in SoCal.   If you still need to push the rim lip out towards the fender lip, you can run machined, billet spacers (don't get cast ones - they break).

Wait a few weeks for the dust to settle on the VS move and then contact Justin to see about size and availability.

cmc you can run 7 in front and 8 in   rears .The VS super wide you runs 8 in front and 10 in rears. gm bolt pattern done on a cmc allows for endless wheel choices for under $500 set of 4. with 4 3/4  back set. the VS wheel is custom made at over $350 each. Gordon can better answer the 16 in

Thanks to both for response. I was checking out empi and samba on 16 x 7 and 8 but I love the deep dish look which is not offered on 16.  

Do you guys know or have seen 16 with deep dish?  

Also depends on how low you car is. My cmc (lowered) flared fender with 16x6&7 Fuchs would rub during hard cornering. There's no way a 17x 8 would fit it!

Bill - is your black CMC IRS or swing axle?