Offset confusion

[VR6child]

I am trying to find out what people think is the best offset for an 16 x 8" wheel on a mk3 to get the wheels as flush as possible, not poke or tuck but flush.

What I want is for both front and rear wheels to be equally flush with the guards.

I am thinking that the back will need to be a lower ET than the front, right?

I may be well off the mark but I am just gonna put it out there, my guess is

-front ET around 30
-rear ET around 15

[Water Boy]

et30 on an 8" rim with scrub on the strut/coilover at the front.

[VR6child]

Serious? I thought it would be sweet.

This is ET 34 with barely stretched tyres, and pretty slammed. I guess it depends on the individual wheel/tyre/suspension setup. Surely if you can get away with ET 34, you'd be fine with ET 30 (in regards to the wheel not hitting the strut).

Talking about the wheel in the background of the pic btw.

[rayray086]

Above example looks like it's running positive camber. ET30 is OK for the fronts, no camber (chance of rubbing if your coilovers sit low and you've got balloon tyres) and the rears, go for ET20-25. ET15 will poke.

[dubbed_up_daz]

this is my brothers although he is running a 7" on the front






porsche fit 5x130 compomotive cxn II 3 piece almost certain theyre et45 with 25mm adaptors but its been a while since I measured them when i built them but im sure he ran 25mm adaptors when he ran his 16"teledials then reused them for these

[Jarred]

...

This is ET 34 with barely stretched tyres, ...

dude, they're both reasonably stretched tyres...

also are you sure it's et34, cause it looks a bit like it's poking...:S

[VR6child]

Hmm well the fronts in that pic are 205/40/16 on an 8".

According to the continental tyres site, 195/40/16 is within manufacturer's recommendations for mounting on a 7.5" wheel. Considering that, I would say 205/40/16 on 8" to be a very low amount of stretch. But having said with that I do agree with ya, they look pretty stretched.

Also the comment on positive camber is a fair point, now I look at it that is probably why the wheels fit and it just looks stupid. Probably wouldn't fit with 0 degrees camber. Clearly an offset closer to 30 or lower is what you need for the front.

Another factor I just realised is that if you have base/2.0 suspension then you will have more problems clearing the strut than with plus/vr6 suspension, surely? Thanks to vr6 front track being wider.

Okay at least I think we can agree that 20-25 is perfect on the back for an 8", assuming there is no rubbing on the strut...is it safe to say there wouldn't be?

Pretty sure 2.0 and vr6 have different width rear track, but difference should be negligible.

[rayray086]

Rears have the same track between GL and VR6 (they use the same parts, only difference is the rotor hub have 5 holes tapped as opposed to 4 holes). ET25 8" wide will clear the suspension easy on the rear.

As for the stretch, some tyres stretch "better" than others - Falken 451, Continentals, Dunlop SP9000, Toyo Proxes T1R and some others can stretch a lot more than most other tyres of the same size, so don't expect other 205s to stretch so nicely over an 8" wide rim (I had a pair of Yokohamas on 8" and they didn't stretch much at all, but they did look fat!).

[MuddyMudskipper]

It might be a lot of reading, but these two threads helped me figure out the mysteries of offsets. Good info, pictures, and a little school girl style bickering thrown in for good measure.

The n00b stance thread

tires sizes and offsets

[rayray086]

Yep, got a lot of info from the second thread too, but like Mudskipper said, a lot of **** to sift through!