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On to Bigger and some what better things :)

38036 Views 120 Replies 38 Participants Last post by  thunderace31
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Well I liked my old rims that I had but I decided to try something different out. I got a bug in my ass after I got an extremely good deal on a set of Baer brakes, but they weren't for an Imp of Caprice, so after talking with Baer (the secret society that WILL not give you any information), I decided to sell the kit, which I am hoping it will be gone here rather quickly, after talking with Tobin @ Kore3 about it.

Anyway, I was checking out different wheels didn't know what I wanted, but I did want to do a big brake set, so I found a set of calipers off a 2010 grand sport that had rolled off a truck at freeway speed. I got them for a VERY good price. One has some marks on it from the accident, but oh well, nothing a little touch up can't take care off.

So then I decided I would just go with the Z06 theme on my car, I could get the wheels pretty cheap, yeah I would have to run spacers, but who cares really, if they are designed right, there should be no problems with them. I bought a pair of spacers from Alex @ PCM performance he had laying around from Fred Goeske @ wheeladpaters.com. Anyway I knew these were made right, they are 3 inch adapters, but it would give me leeway if I had to cut them down at all. You will see why here in a second.

So after scouring the C6 forums, I located a set of wheels, chrome, from an 09 Z06, 18X9.5 in the front and 19X12 in the rear. After talking with the gentleman selling them, he wanted to part with the Goodyear supercar tires as well, with 900 miles on them. I got them at a steal.

Anyway I don't have the front mocked up yet as I want to get the brakes done then dink with the wheels and tires and make sure all the measurements are the same.

Here are the brakes. 6 piston front 4 piston rear, I will be using most of Tobin's stuff to complete the installation..

Here is a shot of the front calipers going on, same as the Z06 just in silver instead of red.


Rear tire size



Here is the rear wheel mocked up with the 3 inch spacer, you will see that there is plenty of room from frame to tire, I am going to cut 1/2 inch off the spacer to start, if I don't like how it sits in the fender I will notch the frame and bring it under further. I was pretty afraid as I didn't know if I would like them or not, but I think that they are going to come out pretty good.



Picture is deceiving but there is about 3/4 of inch of space in there.



How it hangs out right now


rear view
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Looks like a fun project. Aren't you suppost to start these kinds of mods at the beginning of winter? ;)
In theory ;)
Yeah it would be a concern in the back of my mind, These rims are actually repops so they are heavier, which I would think would lead them to be a bit stronger, but I Am not sure on this.
I guess we will find out. I am sure that they will dent faster if I hit a bump in my car compared to a vette. It would be more of a concern if I was road racing it or something of that nature. But there are members on there that run vette rims on his road race car and I don't think that he has had an issue. Like I said we will see :)
No worries man, you wouldn't change my mind on them anyway LOL No offense, but I know what you are saying. I look at it this way with these though, if just driving normal, car at normal weight of 4500 or so, the rims, well originals are spun cast aluminum, made to handle a vette cornering at 1G for extended periods. I think that it evens out, even though the vette is about 1300 pounds lighter.
I did some thinking and some more calculating on paper and after talking with DSSTRBD about his ride a little and how Mr. Harris did the narrowing/sectioning and where his rims sit with backspacing at 8 inches, I came up with this.

I will narrow/notch the frame to gain clearance, so that I can run 7 to 7.25 inches of backspacing. Looking more at 7.25 inches backspace. I have a 9C1 axle in my car where as his is an Imp, so if I put his rim (18X12 with 8 inches of backspace) on my car it would sit further in about 3/4 of an inch due to rearend width differences.

So my rims in the rear have +59MM offset which comes out to 8.82 inches of backspace, so to get my ideal(on paper mind you) 7.25 inches of backspace I am going to need an adapter 1.57 inches wide, which is good, I like the idea keeping the spacer/adapter as thin as possible. The calculations work right, but we will have to see on the car once I get everything all mocked up.

For the front, they are 18X9.5 with +40MM offset, which is 6.82 inches of backspacing. Going with about 5.5 inches of backspacing up front need a spacer of 1.32 inches, again sounds good to me. This will all be relative on the type of hub that I decide to use for the Vette brakes as well as the thickness of the rotor hat as well, may have to take it down to 1.1 inches because of this. Not sure, frame first, brakes next, then measure for another set of adapters, mill the 3 inch ones that I have and see what happens.

Somewhat of a game plan.

received two things not related to the wheels and tires today via fedex, Gm part numbers 16519237 and 16519238, can you guess what they are ;) Funny they are in the original boxes, just crazy. Simple google search will tell you
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Mike,

My basement holds a set of C6 Z06 painted wheels---all are OE 18 x 9.5 with +40mm offset, as I didn't want to deal with the larger rear rubber fit issues or thicker adapters. Never mounted at this point, will be using 275/45-18 rubber--yes, fairly tall. They're going on when I finally install the next brake setup--340mm rotors all around.

A new wheel has caught my eye--ZR1-style from SLP, also offered with a black finish and machined face. The difference is that the offset on these wheels is not the same as Z06--fronts are 55mm instead of 40mm, not sure about rears.

The nice thing about high-offset wheels is the clearance you get for brakes, but it is a different look.

Enjoy the headlights--I sold mine when I got a set of SStreetLights. Howard Rothstein had an "incident" with his car, and his T84's were wrecked, so he has them now.
Just about every one I've ever bought had poked through a corner of the box--a simple cardboard sleeve over the spindle would have put a stop to it....and it had nothing to do with UPS!
If I could of found the deal that I got on these I would of put on the ZR1's for sure, in fact I would love to if I get tired of these, at least I know after I get these mounted up and fitting perfect ZR's would bolt right on.

Yeah GM's packaging isn't the greatest, that is for sure. But I will tell you that UPS somewhat sucks in delivering my items without some sort of damage to it. I am guessing that I am some sort of oddity in the puzzle or something. But EVERY box that I receive shipped via UPS has holes in it or is smashed in some way shape or form. I don't know. It is what it is. :)

By the way, I got the brake shields the other day, thanks again.
t-84's!!!!!
Now where did you ever get that idea from ;)
Hey Roger,

Thanks for the references, I have had them bookmarked for months now :) Those guys do some AMAZING work for sure. That is the exact process that I am going to use, well not all of it, since they stepped in by the lower control arm mount, you shouldn't need to do that, if you are maintaining the factory control arms, going to the FAB 9 unit is why they did this, but everything else is on point, I guess for a certain case I didn't understand when the notching process was done by others, why they didn't do this method, or even a little modified version on this way, which I am going to do, I have an idea up my sleeve, hopefully I will get started on it shortly.

Thanks again
Getting there man, swamped with life at the moment. Trying to get the time to work on it between working a load of hours and stuff like that, should be done mid May I would hope anyway. Went out and ripped the rest of the brake lines out for the brake install, I have to drop the rearend out yet, that takes all of 45 minutes, but have to get that out to work some surgery :) The plan is and it should come out like there isn't a notch there at all. When looking in you will see the original frame rail. I will elaborate further as I go along.
Hey John,

Yeah I have read up on alot. I didn't fully understand what the blackout guys were doing, but if you get under the car and peer up at the frame rail you will see, it isn't a complete rectangular shaped box, it is more like a trapezoid, the bottom of it is the thinnest portion, up in the front area, I am thinking about going out and dropping the rear out of my car tonight, if I do I will take some pics of what I am talking about, you will see what I mean. I honestly don't think that they frame needs to be dropped down to do it, as long as you have a plasma cutter, but I am working on that one ;) Even if I don't have one I will figure it out as I don't have the time to drop the frame down, let alone the patience :)
Plasma cutter on loan from a friend should arrive in the morning. I am going to drop the gas tank and lines as I want to clean up under it anyway and get it out of the way for the cutting that will commence tomorrow sometime, that is if the cutter gets here at a good time. :) I will post up how it comes out. Probably take a couple of days, I have to go get more gas for the welder as well.
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Notch is done on one side, I will start and finish the other side shortly. Here are some cell phone pics so you get an idea, they will fit now ;) The notch isn't complete, but this is progress, I reused the old outer piece, welded in 3/16 steel behind it to stiffen it up a bit, also widened the lower portion of the frame where it get stupid thin after notching, Once I get it all closed up, you won't be able to tell that it has one, that is the way I wanted it. Nursing this aching ass shoulder is killing me :)

Here are some pics. They are with my cell phone and probably aren't the greatest.


You can see where I added metal here






Looks like there is plenty of room in there now, oh by the way notch is 1.3 inches total.


This gives you an idea of what it is going to look like, there is no rearend in the car it is just sitting on the crate and the jack stand.






More to come I will take more pics along the way of the other side as I am doing it.
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Yeah I love that welder, best 600 bucks I ever spent, about 4 or 5 years ago now.

The rust isn't that bad, just flakey stuff it makes it look worse than it really is.
Yeah 30's not in this life time LOL

Yeah it is actually really easy to do, plasma cutter makes it go oh so much smoother. I went the extra step that only a handful have gone and widen the lower portion of the rail that gets awful thin after notching. I didn't like the idea as I kept thinking about if I got hit hard in the rearend it would jamb the rear bumper in the ground and give a ramp for the vehicle that hit me to go over top the car, not that I want anything to happen like that, but it made sense to me to do it this way. You can combat this with a thick plate, which I did double duty, widened the lower portion and added 3/16 plate behind the original steel that I sunk into the rail.
Well this is something on my mind now lol i have all the tools available since I work construction on our U.S. Military bases.Thanks for some of your input and pics and info.

The bad is the wheels I want in 24's are going to be 24x11 to get the 5'' lip,also a 275/25 tire would be way to stretched to its limit and look real stupid with the rim hanging out the tire :(.

How much would I need to cut for a 24x10 wheel with a 4.5 backspace? it has a nice 5.5'' lip, is the wheel to out or to in for our b-bodies rear fenders?

To out it would hit the fender not the frame, unless you narrowing the rearend, FYI a 10 inch rim should fit with out trouble
Very nice work. It looks like there's not much clearance at the top between tire and frame. What size tire and wheel you runnin? They're lookin real nice back there. I'll bet they're going to add even more solid feel when driving also. How long did it take you to cut that one side? Did you use the plasma cutter or cut-off wheel? I wish I could of done mine myself. I'm jealous.
John
Hey John thanks, the distance from the frame to the tire is about 1 inch right now, they are 325/30/19, the rims are C6 Z06 vette wheels, 19X12's. They are just floating in there as I still have the rearend out of the car.

Plasma cutter all the way, I would of had to drop the frame to get in there with a cutoff wheel.

Solid feel maybe, I don't know I had 315's on it before, we will see. With the new brakes and everything it should be night and day, should is a big word though :)
No problem man, one thing that I did do was jack the wheel and tire up as far as it would go, you start to get some resistance in the fender well at the top, only taking an inch, it maybe alright, I am assuming that the frame is even with the rib of the body that is right above the frame on your car?

Also make sure that you go with a 12 inch rim, this will limit tire bulge that you are going to have. I will keep this posted, it won't be on the wheels for about two weeks, maybe a smidge longer I have to get spacers for it yet, and I have a T56 installation coming in here in about the same time frame. So I have no choice but to get it done :)
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Well figured that I would update this a bit. The rear notch is complete and I will take more pictures this evening as I am going to stab the rearend back up in there.

Shot some paint in there and scraped all the b.s. rust flake off.

But I wanted to give a precursor of what the front is going to look like, I bought some 2 inch spacers just to get the wheels on the car and down and out of the way for the time being as I knew they would be, well good enough for that, they would priced well and I will be able to resell them when I get the custom ones made.

Here is a couple of pics of the front wheel on, I calculated the new spacer will be 1.3 inches or there abouts, the ones on there is 2 inches, so the wheel will suck in another 3/4's of an inch as well as when it has full weight on the car it will lower down another inch or so.






More pics later!
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Thanks man, I think that I am going to pull an all nighter, I got the rearend in place, just have to do some final tightening of things. I am going to throw the 2 inch spacers on it for now all the way around and put on the wheels, I need to order up some good brake fluid and start the bleeding and make sure there are no leaks, knowing my luck it is going to be the line that is the biggest pain to get to the one right above the rear.

It is coming along, just wish I had more time. But I always take on sh** and don't think about that ;) More pics soon.
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AS promised more pictures this time of the rear, right as I stated above there is a 2 inch spacer in there, I calculated a spacer of 1.8 was going to be needs for the rear and 1.3 for the front, the front is for sure going to need that and I Will probably just put in what I calculated for the rear even though 2 inch units will work for the rear with a 9C1 axle, if I had an SS axle the spacer would be closer to 1 inch.

HEre you go, not the greatest pics, but I wanted you all to see what was going on with it.
Crappy picture here but you can see my new brake lines that I made up as I had to move the original brake hose bracket to the front of the axle since I moved the calipers.

Passenger side from the rear



Space from frame to anti scrub lip on tire, a little over an inch, to the first knuckle on my finger is exactly an inch.





back side of frame notch/narrowed section

View looking up from the drivers side, being there isn't full weight on the front yet, there rear is kindof crooked, but you get the idea, another .3 of an inch it will be perfect.



Drivers side looking forward, again springs are not settled by any means, just a precursor pic :)


Front to back drivers side



side shot showing the new brakes C6 Grandsport Brake Install Thread

http://www.impalassforum.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=257194




MORE LATER !!!!! :)
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Thanks Roger, how is your small modification coming along :)
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