so i recently purchased a supervettes body kit and installed the rear quarters along with their superdeep forgestar f14's im having a problem bottoming out i already broke 1 quarter panel we had to remove it and fix the break and repaint it. I already bought some billstein sports shocks for the rear but im still having too much travel is there a way i can stop the travel after a certain amount? i have an ls3 base 08 car. I would like to lower my car but im afraid of getting even closer to the quarter panels on hard dips anyone have any recomendations?
here's how the rear sits right now

 

Looks like the fender flare isn't wide enough for the tire.

The clearance from the tire to the fender looks wide enough if the tire would fit under the fender lip, which it looks like it doesn't.

Rims are too wide.....

 

Have you talked to Jason Hunkler at supervettes at all? He's been nothing but helpful with my inquires.

 

Its not that the rims are too wide, its that the off set of the rim, or added spacer is wrong and has the tire protruding out past the the lips of the fenders instead.


Hence there is lot of room to go wider tires with them more towards the center of the car, but you don't want the tires hanging out past the lips of the fender instead. So either the rim off sets are wrong for the fenders, or if you are using spacers, the spacers are wide isntead.

Bottom line, you want to be able to bottom out the suspension, and the tires not contacting the fender lips, or inside of the fender wells.

 

would it be possible to may be the tire profile? Im running 345/30/19 i was thinking of getting a new set of tires 335/25/19 and possibly adding a small amount of camber? besides all the fitment stuff, what can i do reduce suspension travel? would getting z06 springs help along with the bilstein shocks i have now?

 

Tires look to fit the rims correctly, so that not the problem.

The problem is that the rim off sets are wrong, and pushing the end of the rims out past the fender lips instead.

Understand rim off set, and this will clean up why the rims are pushing the front outer edges past the the fender lips to begin with.


So the rim widths determine how wide of a tire that they will accept to begin with, and the rim off set determine how the tire and rim will fit in the wheel well (so the lip of the rim and tire mounted on it will not end up protruding out past the lip of the fender well).

With any luck, you spacers between the rims and hubs, and you just need thinner spacers (brake calipers allowing so they are not rubbing on the inside of the rim) to pull the rims back inwards toward the center line of the car to resolve the problem.

If not and you have no spacers installed, then you need new rims with the correct offsets (more postive offset) to correct the problem instead.
Note, if you had a shop measure and order these up for you, then they missed the mark on the needed rim off set's and should exchange the rims for the correct off set rims instead.

Bluntly put, there is room for wider tires/rims on most models towards the center line of the car before the inside of the tire/rim starts rubbing somthing, but you need to maintain the rims inside the wheel well (so they are not protruding outside the fender lips) with the correct rim off sets instead.

 

i ordered these directly from supervettes Jason was the one who got me set up and it sucks they where the incorrect offsets you figure after dumping a huge amount of money on the kit they would have everything down to a science im not sure why im having these issues not to mention i had to wait about 4-5 months to get my wheels

 

they're either wrong, or he's expecting a lot more camber that you didn't add it looks like to me.

 

Even at that, he should have still been using the distance from the face of the hub, to the inner clearance side of the fender for his holds for rim off set.

Best guess right now, had that clearance for say a set rim widths, but did not add in more positive off set for wider rims instead (or the wider rims where not available with the needed increase in off sets, which is often the case instead.

Dots403, all I can say is make the needed call to supervettes Jason to see if he will exchange the rims for the one's with the needed off set's to resolve the problem.

Hence pull the tires, break out a plumb bob, drop it from the inside of the fender lips in the areas that will allow the tires to recess up clearly, then measure from the string to the face of the hub so you have the needed beginning numbers. now use those numbers with the rim widths, and it will give you the needed off sets for both needed the front and back rims. Now the "fun to had by all" time, trying to find a production rim with the needed off sets, and not ones that have to be special made instead (at huge bank per rim instead).

 

Dano523 put into words what my eyes saw, thanks for the usual great explanation.

 

Now Worries, and let hope that it all ends well with Dots403 getting replacement rims with the correct off-set's needed for free, instead of being out over a grand for the new needed rims instead.

 

If you want to cheaply/easily reduce suspension travel, you can put bigger bump stops on the shocks. Keep in mind reducing suspension travel can hurt handling in certain situations.

 

The shorter tire will certainly help as will adding some camber. 1-1.4 degree is a good setting. Stiffer spring will also help. Changing tire diameter may throw the computer off depending on the size of your front tires as it maybe off now.

--Dan

 

Not sensible at all. You don want to limit suspension travel, your problem is not the suspension but the wheels. Get ones that fit. Don't try to fix what is not problem, fix the problem, bluntly said. Also tires and wheels sticking out look very tacky, pimp my ride kind of way IMHO. It does not belong on a Vette.

 

Ditto,
At high speed, you want at much suspension travel that you can get, and often, will use all of it to keep the tire gripped and tracking to the road.

With limited suspension at high speed in a rougher section, bouncing off the stops or only having half the travel, is going to end with the car sideways; even down a straight section.

 

If you purchased your ZR6X rear quarters and wheels from us, please contact us via PM, email or phone with your full details and order number. (Just curious, why haven't you yet?)

We have used many Forgestar F14's on our conversions with no rubbing issues. However, 90% of the time, when someone orders their wheels from another source for our kit, there are always fitment issues.

Also, there are some cheap hand laid knockoffs floating around from vendors on this very forum that just are not made right, nor trimmed correctly, so that could also be the issue.

Either way, let us know and we'll try to isolate the issue.

 

Here are a few of our F14 Superdeep builds over the past year that have no rubbing issues. I will preface this by saying, none of them had Bilstein sport shocks. They could have more travel and/or rebound than factory or coilovers which many of our customers use for an optimal stance.