When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
You’ve pretty much nailed the challenge. The way I discovered the best wheel/tire size and profile for my ‘64 convertible was doing as you describe. I also tried various ride heights trying to optimize both performance and aesthetics. Easier said than done! Thanks!
Question is why would you have to open the front wheel or back wheel sides of the wheel well if your going with a shorter tire then the 27 3/4 tires that came stock on the car originally as mentioned by Poorhouse above? With flairs you probably going to go with a wider tire which will have to be shorter with modern tires.
As you turn the steering wheel, the wider the tire the more room it needs. I will be running 11x18 wheels with 315/30-18. While it is only 25.5” tall, the tread is 12.5” wide. That width on the diagonal is significantly longer than a taller, but narrower stock size tire.
Don't know where to get them just thought I would share
Not a total side view but these wheel wells look great without the big gaps on the sides of the wheel well. You have a tough job ahead trying to get the right balance!!
Exactly! Compounding my challenge is that my car is ermine white, so there is a sharp contrast between the wheel opening and the body color. The car Reno shared doesn’t have that issue. Notice that the flare I posted above follows the front of the rear opening closely, but looks to be about 3” wider at the rear. If you look closely at the Reno car, it may be the same but it is really hard to tell given the color. On the front as you can see in the picture below, it is the opposite which works as on the stock body it is the front of the wheel well where you first hit interference with a wider or taller tire.
In mentioning a front splitter, and the 1st Gen Camaro splitter that people add, I would like to see something more updated, so I screwed around with Microsoft paint, with no idea what I am doing & came up with the modern style front splitter. No doubt the purists hate the thought, but I'm waiting to see someone do something like this. I wouldnt do something like this to my car, but I could see something like this on a SEMA car or one of these bad *** wide-body cars. Its gotta be done right though, and what I sketched up is not right at all, just an idea, and yes, keeping the bumpers!
Last edited by Rob_64-365; 12-03-2018 at 08:40 PM.
As you turn the steering wheel, the wider the tire the more room it needs. I will be running 11x18 wheels with 315/30-18. While it is only 25.5” tall, the tread is 12.5” wide. That width on the diagonal is significantly longer than a taller, but narrower stock size tire.
i think you you should plan 315s on the front and 335-30-18 on the back. The old race cars were running 27” to 28” diameter to fill those flares.
Too many Rob's here haha!!
I had seen that splitter thread and did not comment, I was thinking more along the lines of a clean look, similar to a C7Z-06 or widebody challenger type of splitter. Something that ties the round blinker into the splitter, in a nice clean look, that looks like it was always there, not a bolt on look.
Pretty hard to achieve 55 years later.
Last edited by Rob_64-365; 12-03-2018 at 11:46 PM.
In mentioning a front splitter, and the 1st Gen Camaro splitter that people add, I would like to see something more updated, so I screwed around with Microsoft paint, with no idea what I am doing & came up with the modern style front splitter. No doubt the purists hate the thought, but I'm waiting to see someone do something like this. I wouldnt do something like this to my car, but I could see something like this on a SEMA car or one of these bad *** wide-body cars. Its gotta be done right though, and what I sketched up is not right at all, just an idea, and yes, keeping the bumpers!
The problem with putting a Spoiler on a stock width C2 front end is stock width of lower nose leaves a lot of tire exposed, so to improve the front-end's aerodynamics you need the Spoiler (use that term because trying to make a Splittter one, requires spliter to sit to close to ground, puging nose of car trying to widen it to cover exposed front tires. That leaves you with having to make a spoiler similar to the factory C3 one.
You can see from the picture how hard it is to get front tire coverage with stock body look is, was one of the reasons I widened the nose on car I was working on 1.0" on both side of car's nose, so I had little less that 1/4" of exposed tire on each side to deal with.
Plan was to mount spoiler's face to backside edge of stock lower nose with face of it extending down 3 1/2" - 4 3/4" then use C6 Z06 style front's face lower splitter design with brake cooling ducts to try and trap air between lower nose and splitter piece in effort to try and force trapped air to exit on left and right hand sides of it, rather than have so much air forced underneath nose of car, like lower nose's stock design does.
Pulled a Mold off stock C6 Z06 Splittter but haven't had a chance to pull a part off mold to see if I can make a workable spoiler that doesn't totally screw the look of front end up. Adding modern Aerodynamic look is what the build is all about and reason it has Aersoskirts to try and keep air from exiting from underside of car an upward on sides of doors and body between the front an rear wheel well openings causing drag on body.
Will any of this work aerodynamics wise? Who knows, without wind-tunnel testing,
Just a try to see how bad trying to adding modern aerodynamics makes a C2's body look, plus make car different from any other C2s out there....LOL
PHN, I think your comments are spot on. The best I’ve seen is Brian’s very simple design. All the rest look tacked on and negatively impact the lines of the car. I look forward to seeing how your design evolves. Here’s Brian’s.
The problem with putting a Spoiler on a stock width C2 front end is stock width of lower nose leaves a lot of tire exposed, so to improve the front-end's aerodynamics you need the Spoiler (use that term because trying to make a Splittter one, requires spliter to sit to close to ground, puging nose of car trying to widen it to cover exposed front tires. That leaves you with having to make a spoiler similar to the factory C3 one.
You can see from the picture how hard it is to get front tire coverage with stock body look is, was one of the reasons I widened the nose on car I was working on 1.0" on both side of car's nose, so I had little less that 1/4" of exposed tire on each side to deal with.
Plan was to mount spoiler's face to backside edge of stock lower nose with face of it extending down 3 1/2" - 4 3/4" then use C6 Z06 style front's face lower splitter design with brake cooling ducts to try and trap air between lower nose and splitter piece in effort to try and force trapped air to exit on left and right hand sides of it, rather than have so much air forced underneath nose of car, like lower nose's stock design does.
Pulled a Mold off stock C6 Z06 Splittter but haven't had a chance to pull a part off mold to see if I can make a workable spoiler that doesn't totally screw the look of front end up. Adding modern Aerodynamic look is what the build is all about and reason it has Aersoskirts to try and keep air from exiting from underside of car an upward on sides of doors and body between the front an rear wheel well openings causing drag on body.
Will any of this work aerodynamics wise? Who knows, without wind-tunnel testing,
Just a try to see how bad trying to adding modern aerodynamics makes a C2's body look, plus make car different from any other C2s out there....LOL
You and I are on the same page with this. I have sketched up a few things, and yes that width issue in relation to where the tires sit at the widest point of the car really comes into play. My scribble sketches are trying to honor the fog lamps, and even those look so far inboard when thinking aero & tire coverage. We do a lot of aero models for wind tunnel testing, and an add on tire-spat does work to move the air around a tire, not that we care about every tenth of a percentage aero improvement on these 50 year old cars, but if someone is racing, every point counts... Anyway I thought I'd take a swipe at sketching something out. I definitely see the challenges in this, but this is the kind of thing I like, and I commend all the work you have put into this, and these cars all look awesome!
Last edited by Rob_64-365; 12-04-2018 at 10:05 AM.
Rob64 and PHN, I gave this some thought while trying to go to sleep last night and I don’t think we can find a truly functional solution that shrouds the front wheels and doesn’t look godawful. Given the choice of fully function, but ugly or partially functional, but beautiful I would pick the latter. However, keep up the good work, you may achieve a breakthrough yet!
I agree, it's tough to balance to form & function, I wish I had the time to give it a shot myself, but I am forced to live vicariously thru you guys at the moment.
12-03-2018, 06:44 PM
