Quote: Originally Posted by Orr89RocZ wait what are you trying to say here? Typo....Torque arm controls pinion, panhard controls side to side.

i hope you meant torque arm in the 1st sentance. im sure you did.

yeah thats what i said, panhard controls side to side. so if you drop the rear and have clearance issues, just disconnect the panhard when you need to drop it.

Sorry, I mis-read your post. I just re-read it, and thought you had said the panhard DOESN'T control side-to-side.

dont worry, i will have pic for you guys, my camera is just down at the moment. Hopefully i will have the passengerside finished this weekend

oh man im doing something fairly similar to you.
just reading this thread is getting me excited!
i wish i had more money tho haha. i be out ordering all the parts i need right now!! but i dont gotta wait till afew more pay days before i can do anything like that

what do you think in total this mod will cost you with the rims to the finish product?

im doing all the work myself, and the tubs are built from scratch, so the wheels/tires are the most expensive.
lets see...
wheels widened 500 bux
control arms 200 bux
tires 740 bux
thats 1440 bux for just the wheel setup!

as for steel, maybe 40 bux
gas 45 bux
seal sealer, band-aids, sawzall blades, tetanus shot150 bux
thats 195 bux for extras so far

i dont know what im doing for the interior yet.

thats all i had to buy to go from where the car was sitting to where it will be. I already had the coil-over setup and the original wheels. I dont think a stock style spring will work, definitely need a smaller spring setup.

The largest factor is time, if you were paying someone to do this it would probably cost quite a bit. I started 2 weeks back, just working at night and on the weekend when i had time. Attention to detail is important too, no sense cutting off more material that you need, and if you dont measure, measure, and re-measure, you could run into issues.

side-to side travel shouldn't be an issue. It's reasonably minimal through the suspensions range of motion. - I was lowered 2"(sportline) plus the big-azz stereo in the trunk. The bumpstop would contact the inside lip of the wheel when the suspension was at full droop, so I trimmed the corners off with a cut-off wheel. - Wasn't a side-to side problem, just an 11" fitment issue.

I understand what you're saying about the arms. Like I said, if I did anything different, it would just be a to plate the joint top and bottom. Those arms look to be plenty strong for any true street car.

If Steve let the arms leave his shop I wouldnt worry one bit about them. Your car is definately going to sit nice when its is all said and done. Just make sure the work you do to finish the interior is done just as nice or it will make the whole job will look like a hack did it. Good Luck!

Boy thats a lot of money just for an extra inch of tire!!!!

How about it! Between money and unsprung weight, he would've been better off with 315 R-comps!

I think if I wanted a lot of traction on the street, and wanted to use a tire that actually has some tread on it (what you have vs say et streets), I wouldve gone the extra distance and relocated the control arms inward.

that may be true, i dont have the weight of my wheel/tire combo vs a 315, but my wheels dont weigh as much as i though they did, they were quite light before i put the tires back on.

as for the size, its just how i feel about things, sure, i could have used 315's, saved a lot of time on the fab work and been just like every other wide street tire guy on this board, or i could invest a bit of my down time this winter and do something different to make the car more unique.

im not racing the car, a drag radial/slick/et street does not make any sense for me. I drive the car on the street, and like it to handle and hug the road, not just go fast straight. And if i want to hit the track and go fast and straight, i can swap in a pretty good sized drag radial/slick back there and be on my way. Im sure i can fit a 28 or 29 by 12.5" tire back there on a 15x10 with 6.5"bs with no problems whatsoever.

As for relocating the control arms, has anyone here who responds with this remark ever looked under the back of the car? The shock mount on the axle is in the way. Its not just a simple matter of flipping the arm inboard and making a new mount. You have to completely relocate the shocks. Which i think would be way more work that what im doing.

Anywho, im making decent progress, the passenger side is about 90% finished, just needs some final finishing, sealing and painting, and just a little welding. and the driverside is about 75% done, sorry i haven't had any pics in a while, my camera took a dive and i haven't had any time to fix/replace it.

I was looking at the interior pieces, and back seat... and i think i may found another project that will last me the rest of the winter. it does not look like things are going to just pop back in.
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actually, from where i started, its 4" of tire

this not having a camera is killing me, im going to try to get some decent ones with my phone. Im 99% finished with the fab work on the tubs. Got them all painted and the wheelwells painted and undercoated.

I just have to re-build the rear "mudflap" on the driverside covering the gas filler neck, extending it to the new inner fender. Once the paint dries i can mock up the control arms and massage the floorpan a little for clearance, then its just a matter of making a set of relocation brackets for the panhard bar and the fab work is all done! woot! i see light at the end of the tunnel.
Then i get the wonderful task of dealing with the interior....

it together, have a few little odds and ends to attend to but the bulk of the work is finished!!!

And, {drum roll} i have pics! I wont tell what was wrong with the camera, needless to say i feel like a moron....

the tubs from the inside, from the rear all gooped up with seam sealer,



as you can see, i used the basic shape of the stock wheelhouse and mated it up with the new metal, the inside pieces of both the tubs are 1 big piece of 11ga trimmed to fit and cap off the frame while providing the structural support of the removed bump stop area.

an interior shot of the right tub, the flash made the paint look waaaay off but you can see in the first pic it is very close

I haven't tried to fit the seat yet, i think it will just fit, but im not holding my breath

a shot of the inside of the left wheel well

I have 9.5" on both sides form the face of the rotor flange to the new inner wheel well, giving me a little less than 3/4, 5/8 of an inch from the tire to the well.

a pic of the right side control arm installed


continued....

shots form the right rear



left rear



and a straight shot of the whole rear to top things off for now


and i know the exhaust is off, i tripped on it and haven't fixed it yet....

I still need to lower the driverside panhard mount to level the bar and start making a plan for the interior work

Looks really cool..

Looks good man, tripped over the exhaust lol. Looks real good, let us know how much better it grabs on the street.

First off the car looks sick with the massive rubber out back. How close does the edge of your tire sit to the fender lip though? I'm going to run a large tire but probably not quite as big as your and I'm trying to decide if I want to go with a wider 4th gen style S60 for possibly mini tub the car like you did. But my other question is can you still put the plastic trim panels back in with the mods you have made? Also can't wait to see how sick it looks all done

STEAMROLLERS!! thats just awesome man! i love the look of FAT tires out back

i will go to 295-315's when i'm ready but i would always want bigger i'm just not gonna go thru with the mods you did to get it bigger/wider

hehe, im not even finished yet and i dont think i would ever do it again any time soon.
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um yea, plastics....hmmm....

The piece right behind the door, where the seatbelt come out, or may i say used to come out, will fit, but i have to trim the indent where the belt came though, i'll probably remove it entirely and just smooth it over. the larger pieces that extend all the way to the back.... I going to have to cut them up and extend them inward a tad, not quite going top make it.
Im going to do my best to use as much of the original parts as i can, and just modify them to suit my needs, then im probably going to have to smooth them all out and re-paint them, or have them covered in vinyl/or carpeting.

the outermost part of the tire site about 1/8" overlapping the lip that runs around the well opening, so they are sitting about 3/4" inboard for the outermost face of the quarter-panel, right where they should be IMO

this is a straight on look down the wheel

- that's a thing of beauty!

cool thanks a lot I think I'm probably just gonna cheat a little and use a wider 4th gen sized axle with 0 offset 17x10s and I should have just enough room to run a 315 with it sticking out a little further, but i won't know till i mock the entire thing together. The 335 look sick but I just don't want to add the extra time to the project right now and fab my own tubs. bump for a sweet project

Good lord those suckers are BIG!

Those LCA rods scare me.

I remember some people running 13" slicks without creating a wreck waiting to happen like that.

If anything, you could have doubled up the bushings on the wheel side of the LCA pcket, and then pushed the LCA further inside. That would have created about as much space as you have.

I predict one good plant and if the weld doesnt sheer, than it will bend at the weld.

One other options would be to shoulder load it on the entire inside of the lca mount, but thats a bit scary as well.

I still wouldnt have done it.

What rear are you running?

I predict that with those tires the rear wheels float in a cup of spilled coffee.

And those LCRs do not look strong enough to me, but I am sure Steve has a 100% mfgs warranty that includes collateral damage coverage.

nobody who makes "performance suspension" parts offers any kind of warranty on the parts.

I will be completely honest here, im not a 100% on the control arms. They work, and feel quite sturdy to me, but like people have said, the way they are connected looks a little, "frail" for lack of a better word. Im going to have to just keep an eye on them for any movement, and maybe give them a good beating on a side road near my house and see what happens. If things seem to be bending, looking weird, then i'll look more into "plan B", consisting of either billet aluminum or billet steel.

I cant use the control arms that have 2 rod ends and are offset all the way inboard, they do not have enough clearance, close, but no cigar

Just curious what kind of tires those are and what kind are the old 245's?? Looks sick btw.

The really disconcerting part is that there is very little bearing area between the tube sections, and all the load will be concentrated at the welds instead of distributed around the entire diameter of the tubing. A mandrel bent offset in a single tube would make me feel much better about putting any serious force on them. Even an offset I beam would have more inherent design strength. I'm hoping Spohn has done the complete mechanical design study and is confident that the members will withstand compression, torsion, and shear all at once, but would like to see the numbers ahead of time - Before a good launch and potentially serious damage to the vehicle. Then again, I'm a little anal about engineering design and probably worry too much.

Im pretty sure they're strong enough. Ever really look at the control arm mounts? Same forces going on there, and they're thinner. I sometimes wonder why they dont rip off the body. How about the panhard bar mount? Pretty weak lookin. And after 20 years of beating, looks unphased. I'm sure theres exceptions, and I have heard of guys ripping the rears out of their car on a real hard launch, but I'd say its very rare. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

If they were both like this: [ [ I might be concerned because the axle would shift to the right under a good load. But they are like this: ] [ I doubt they flex at all.

The control arms "push" the car on accel and "pull" under braking, also "lift" while accelerating. They do not look like they will last from what I can see, just not enough overlap of the sections IMO...I would worry too much though, I saw an early firebird rolling down the freeway this winter with something bobbing under it, after closing in on the car I realized with disbelievement that the control arm on the drivers side was rotted in half and the front half was just bobbing up and down as the guy continued too drive.
I`m sure it must have had a feeling like driving a spagehtti noodle down the road but the guy looked as if he was having no problem driving with only 1 control arm.

Otherwise your tub job looks just fine, I just recently finished doing mine as well, (I already jacked the plastics up though) but I can relate it`s a job but worth it while we are parked!

Ive seen that before too! on a camaro, not sure of the year, but i think it was a later model due to the ground fx, driverside control arm just hanging there, rotten in two.

mine stick out and the fender will cut the tire. . . . it sucks

wow those tires are huge. congrats on all the hard work!

a 10 wide doesn't fit a 315 very well. The nitto's fit ok, the bfg's bulge too much. The axle width doesn't matter as long as you get the wheel backspacing correct. - If you search under my name, there are pics of my 4th gen rear, 17x11/315 combo. That's the best they'll fit w/o "tubbing".

That would be my ideal solution I just haven't found any 17x11s that I haven't seen on mulitiple vehicles before, nor do I want to pay to have custom wheels made or other rims widened. So we'll see where it all goes in the end. Thanks for the source for the pictures

If you can find a design, but it 's not wide enough, just have it widened. Best I can do is 9", and might go 11s. Wish somebody could widen to the OUTSIDE, and it still look good, no welding beads.

Update, no pics sorry

Weather was nice today so i took it out for the first spin of the year. took it out and threw it around a bit and didnt hear any weird noises coming from the new metalwork, which is a good sign. No rubbing and the back end feels a whole lot better now that the panhard bars are not hitting each other.

Its supposed to snow or something tomorrow night, so the salt will be coming back, hopefully not for long so i can get some more seat time and see if i can blow the rear or break the control arms.

As for the control arms...... I found that they aren't going to clear the wheels when lowered on LCARB's, so if I happen to pickup some wheel hop im going to have to go to plan "B".

Interior work SUCKS!!!!
Modifying interior panels SUCKS!!!!

so far ive managed to f-up my passengerside cargo area interior, so i had to pickup a new set. I have 1 pc of the driverside almost finished so i will have some pics of that soon.

Damn my car is dirty......

Great thread on widening of your rims and what you did to get to where you are now to get them on your car! I'm looking forward to seeing rest of your report!

Man, that's a big difference! Looks evil with those wide rubbers out back.

Thanks for posting all the pics.

on the relocation brackets, a lot of guys are completely cutting off the stock mounts, and going back wit ha custom thin mount the width of the rod end, instead of using spacers to fit in the stock style bracket.
this will save another inch or so.
good luck!

Looks AWESOME, makes my 275 summitomo's look tiny. Cant wait to see some photo shoot pics.

Those tires look great on the car,keep the pics coming.

had a guy asking questions, so i'll dig up this thread for the pics.

Oh, and the control arms are fine after almost 2 years.

AWESOME!!!! I am putting the same size on my car.

Man those wheels came out nice! Tubs look good too!

I started mocking up my 335s, I have a 4th gen rear sitting next to the car, plus all bmr suspension.

Wow I LIKE that Z28 wing on that firebird...