I have the 17x11 with 315's, and ordered the eibach pro kit. I'm thinking I need to roll the fenders, basically because I have no bump stops and even with stock suspension if I hit a good enough bump the tires will get cut by the upper fender. Anyway, I was under the impression that you could just roll it yourself with a baseball bat and a heat gun, but wanted a professional opinion first. This is what I got.


1) can't do it with a bat or banging it in with a mallet, this will more then likely chip the paint or bend the lip of the well and cause imperfections. Can not garauntee perfection.

2) heat gun will melt the paint, can't do that either, it's not good for it.

3)bending the lip up will induce rust, because water will have a troth in the well

4)Cutting the lip is not good, will induce rust. Must be very careful not to cut the welds as well.

The best professional method he suggested to me was for him to actually flare the fender out, and he will bend the metal and repaint the entire 1/4 panel if any paint chips or stresses. He tells me it will run $150 a side if it doesn't require painting, $250 a side if it does. I know the shop does great work, they win alot of competitions and so forth and work directly with SLP on projects. Now, what should i do?? Is this about what you guys paid for this to get done?? Am I in the ball park or what, thanks for any info.

Brian

 

Im interested in what people have to say on this as well. I'll be putting on 17x11's soon.

 

TTT

 

Just bend the sharp lip upwards.... Your fender is still going to to hit your tire every now and then, but won't cut your tires....

Rubber mallet seem to work for me with NO problems.

Goodluck.

Did I mention I have a BRAND NEW set of Black ZR1s for sale, never mounted & still in the box???

 

I have no rubbing at all with my fender lips and my 315 nitttos.

 

Same here w/ sagging suspension via Father Time.

 

well, the car will have the eibach kit. And like stated, I already have had the first set of tires cut up pretty bad from the fender lip, when you hit a huge dip in the road at 60mph with NO BUMPSTOPS somethings going to give, . I guess I'll put on the suspension kit I bought, then I'll drive it around to see how it rides. The eibach's are supposed to be progressive, so hopefully they won't "bottom out" worse then the stockers. If I do have any problems, I'm going to have to do something about it. I'll prob end up taking it to the shop and having them flared, if I do I'll post pics and info for anyone else interested in how it comes out.


Brian

 

you might want to see if you can find other Z's with flared fenders and see if you like it...he's right that is the correect way to do it, but you may not like it and its more expensive...if you can find another car and you like the look, go for it! Not many people will have that

FWIW my brother in law had the fenders on his Mustang flared, and it was subtle but really made the car look good.

 

1. Why not use bumps stops? Even if you have to shorten them, they will protect the shocks, which can be damaged when they are compressed too far.

2. There is a tool called "The Jimmy" that grabs the lip of the fender, and allows you to slowly work your way around it, bending the lip to about a 45deg angle. There is no damage to the contour of the fender. But you will damage the paint. The instructions recommend that you use a razor blade to score the paint, just inside the edge of the outer fender. As you "roll" the lip, the paint cracks along the score line and there is no risk of the crack extending to the outside of the fender. After you get done, you touch up the paint on the lip of the fender, which is reasonably invisible.

When I first installed my 17x11 50mm offset ZR1 replicas, with 315/35 BFG DR's, the car was lowered with the Pro-Kit springs. I kept the jounce bumpers intact - no problem... just cut the edge off the bracket so it wouldn't catch the inside of the wheel when the body was jacked and the axle dropped. The only time the fender lips rubbed on the tires was when I hit some really huge shifts (car was an M6 at the time, also), and the body would torque sideways. Recentering the body over the axle helped minimize that problem.

 

You might try this tool. Some DFW folks have rented it and used it.

http://www.fenderroller.com/

 

The reason i am not running bump stops it that my wheels do not clear them. Even If i trimmed them down, they would end up rubbing anyway(the metal mounts). Even if i wanted to, I can not run bump stops anymore because I took them off and smashed the area flat with a mini-sledge. I'm not concerned about that, I'm concerned for the tire. I will be replacing all the shocks with SLP takeoffs as well, and I ordered an adj. panhard rod. FYI, my wheels are grandsport offset as well. They are AFS.

I told the guy about the fenderroller and gave him the website, he said he never heard of it and it seems like a fad that won't work. I don't mind using it, I would probably just want to get away with doing that and touching up the paint on the inside of the fender. But, I'm also afraid that if I screw it up it will be screwed bigtime and for the extra $$ I could have it professionally done. I'm not good at bodywork at all, I even had someone put on my vinyl stripes because I don't have the patience for that type of thing. Well, I'm going to put on the springs and leave the fender as is, IF I get any cutting of the tire I'll do something......................

I've tried putting a pipe in between the tire and fender and wrapped the end of the pipe with a wad of duct tape, and tried to get the fender to bend but it took way to much force I was afraid because I might actually bulge the fender.

Brian

 

I got the 315's with the Eibach Pro Kit. Nothing had to be removed (bumpstops incl.). Mine fit perfect. My body shop charged me 100 bucks to roll the fenders for me. I took it home and taped it off and sprayed the area with the rubberized undercoating. Works like a champ. It's been 2 years now.

 

Brian... Ask around in the Texas section of this board or LS1.com or LS2.com. Several guys used and I guess it worked just fine.

Another method used is take a baseball bat and roll it between the tire and fender well. With patience it should work out okay.

I know a lot of guys running 17x11's and 315's and none of them had to have the quarters painted afterwards.