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My rear inner fender liners were completely torn out by my rear tires. Suggestions?
I was having a grand old time this past Saturday driving some of the best curvy roads in Central Texas. There were no cops, there was no traffic, and I was not taking it easy on the Vette at all. I was intentionally trying to finish my R888s off to make room for a fresh set (success!).
Some of those road to get a little bumpy however here and there and i completely tore out my rear fender liners.
I prefer not to go down in rear tire size, and my car is not slammed, any suggestions? What do people do in this scenario?
Any problem with just not running fender liners at all? Or maybe rig up a partial?
I wouldn't run without them, but that's just me.
The rear ones protect a few electrical wires, the gas tanks, and portions of the frame rail. They also shield the seal of the rear fiberglass tub from direct water/road spray.
What size wheel and tire? --- Edit...sorry saw you posted it above 345-30-19 27.1" tall tire..shouldn't be a problem
What kind of car (sorry didn't see it listed), C6Z?
Still stock leaf springs? Any changes to stock ride height?
I always welcome Anthony's advise. Anthony the car is a z51 with a Lingenfelter mini tub.
it has the stock leaf springs. Really I should spring (pun!) for your coilovers for what I do with the car.
The ride height was lowered when I purchased it, but I measured it and it was exactly the number you have recommended in another thread because I had printing your posts on the topic and went home and measured my car.
I looked at the stock Fender liners and they have a lot of fluff in them cause they have insulation and whatnot that takes up a lot of space. Also $300 for replacements. So I have already ordered ABS plastic (the same plastic I used to build my aero undercarriage just a week ago) I will form it to fill in the gaps that I need and attach it with some plastic weld and it'll work great. It should work better that was on there, which was modified C6 base liners that werel made to work with the mini tub kit.
I'm not sure stiffer springs will be the answer. They might help but the ride quality will suffer.
The first step might be to buy the biggest sway bars you can find. Then if the problem continues look for stiffer springs.
I don't see any need to go to coilovers.
Actually I would just call Anthony and buy whatever he tells you to buy. You can screw around with all of this for the next few years and never solve the problem. This alternative is to write one large check to a vendor and be done with it.
Thanks for all the advice guys. The OEM liners have pretty thick insulation above them and are actually probably a solid 1-1.5"s lower than the car/ hatchback themselves. I'm going to build some plastic liners to fill in the gaps under there. It'll be glued on with plastic weld. Next I will buy some stick on insulation and I'll tape that over the whole underside of the fender, and then it will be painted with some rubberized coating.
I believe that will give me all the clearance I will need. I might then just raise the rear slightly too.
St. Jude Donor '03-'04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13
Originally Posted by Suns_PSD
I always welcome Anthony's advise. Anthony the car is a z51 with a Lingenfelter mini tub.
it has the stock leaf springs. Really I should spring (pun!) for your coilovers for what I do with the car.
The ride height was lowered when I purchased it, but I measured it and it was exactly the number you have recommended in another thread because I had printing your posts on the topic and went home and measured my car.
I looked at the stock Fender liners and they have a lot of fluff in them cause they have insulation and whatnot that takes up a lot of space. Also $300 for replacements. So I have already ordered ABS plastic (the same plastic I used to build my aero undercarriage just a week ago) I will form it to fill in the gaps that I need and attach it with some plastic weld and it'll work great. It should work better that was on there, which was modified C6 base liners that werel made to work with the mini tub kit.
I wonder, did the modified inner tubs loose any space from stock? The taller tire on there is going to give up approx 1/4" of gap by itself and depending on pressure and tire growth at speed maybe a little more than that.
I wouldn't rule out a bar or suspension change to the car if it is not handling properly. I wouldn't increase the spring rate just to keep the car off the ground if you can help it as that is going to upset the balance if you just did the rear...again unless the car wants a bigger spring / bar.
You can raise the car to adjust for the new tires, but this can and will sometimes throw the setup off on the car.
If it was a race car....suspension is correct, height is correct and you had to change to a different tire....you modify the body work to make it fit. The big 28" tall slicks on the back of some of our race cars have to use custom inner liners so the tires don't hit.
Also I am basing this off everything working right...if the spring has gone soft or a shock is not operating correctly then that can lead to issues like this too. In that case..yeah time for an upgrade.
All of the above being said....G2 coil overs and G1 bars would work the best on fixing it bottoming out, and give you more grip to boot. I'm happy to work that direction as well.
Last edited by Anthony @ LGMotorsports; 01-24-2017 at 05:06 PM.
Thanks for all the advice guys. The OEM liners have pretty thick insulation above them and are actually probably a solid 1-1.5"s lower than the car/ hatchback themselves. I'm going to build some plastic liners to fill in the gaps under there. It'll be glued on with plastic weld. Next I will buy some stick on insulation and I'll tape that over the whole underside of the fender, and then it will be painted with some rubberized coating.
I believe that will give me all the clearance I will need. I might then just raise the rear slightly too.
As far as adhesives go, West System GFlex Adhesive epoxy will stand up to abuse much better than any typical "plastic weld" epoxy (like the cheap permatex stuff at auto stores). GFlex can be found at most boating stores, online, or at composites shops for 25 - 30 bucks per large bottle which actually makes it cheaper than buying a whole bunch of tiny 5-6 dollar bottles of plastic weld from autozone (8 ounces versus 0.8oz).
Just make sure to sand the surfaces to be bonded well, do an alcohol wipe cleaning, and then flame treat them if you can (obviously after waiting for the alcohol to dry).
The other option is to make your own - buy a set of oem ones and then modify them with foam (or whatever material you want) to get the shape then use as molds for carbon fiber, kevlar, or fiberglass parts... this avoids adding the additional weight of rubberized coatings and insulation (and will likely reduce the weight compared to oem). I recently made a set of front fender liners out of boredom for my c6 using carbon - each ended up weighing approx 2 oz and in total both cost less than the dealership charges for one abs plastic fender liner...
As far as adhesives go, West System GFlex Adhesive epoxy will stand up to abuse much better than any typical "plastic weld" epoxy (like the cheap permatex stuff at auto stores). GFlex can be found at most boating stores, online, or at composites shops for 25 - 30 bucks per large bottle which actually makes it cheaper than buying a whole bunch of tiny 5-6 dollar bottles of plastic weld from autozone (8 ounces versus 0.8oz).
Just make sure to sand the surfaces to be bonded well, do an alcohol wipe cleaning, and then flame treat them if you can (obviously after waiting for the alcohol to dry).
The other option is to make your own - buy a set of oem ones and then modify them with foam (or whatever material you want) to get the shape then use as molds for carbon fiber, kevlar, or fiberglass parts... this avoids adding the additional weight of rubberized coatings and insulation (and will likely reduce the weight compared to oem). I recently made a set of front fender liners out of boredom for my c6 using carbon - each ended up weighing approx 2 oz and in total both cost less than the dealership charges for one abs plastic fender liner...
As far as adhesives go, West System GFlex Adhesive epoxy will stand up to abuse much better than any typical "plastic weld" epoxy (like the cheap permatex stuff at auto stores). GFlex can be found at most boating stores, online, or at composites shops for 25 - 30 bucks per large bottle which actually makes it cheaper than buying a whole bunch of tiny 5-6 dollar bottles of plastic weld from autozone (8 ounces versus 0.8oz).
Just make sure to sand the surfaces to be bonded well, do an alcohol wipe cleaning, and then flame treat them if you can (obviously after waiting for the alcohol to dry).
The other option is to make your own - buy a set of oem ones and then modify them with foam (or whatever material you want) to get the shape then use as molds for carbon fiber, kevlar, or fiberglass parts... this avoids adding the additional weight of rubberized coatings and insulation (and will likely reduce the weight compared to oem). I recently made a set of front fender liners out of boredom for my c6 using carbon - each ended up weighing approx 2 oz and in total both cost less than the dealership charges for one abs plastic fender liner...
Whatever you decide to do good luck!
Are those pre-preg or did you do a wet layup on them?
Those were just done via wet layup with a lot of squeegeeing as I was teaching someone how to do basic work with carbon, but I prefer prepeg since it makes for thinner/lighter parts, and tends to be a lot quicker to layup.
01-22-2017, 08:48 PM
My rear inner fender liners were completely torn out by my rear tires. Suggestions?
You can screw around with all of this for the next few years and never solve the problem. This alternative is to write one large check to a vendor and be done with it. 
I'm happy to work that direction as well.
