Project SC300 Road Racer: Part 23 – Wider is better! Getting Clearance with a Wide Body Kit.
Sean Freed operating the tire mounting machine
This is Sean Freed from FREED Performance.

With a combined experience of over 20 years in the industry, FREED Performance has been in business in north Atlanta since 2009. They focus on Porsche performance but service many makes and models of European vehicles. They’re also really close to my house.

When you deal in Porsches, you deal in expensive things. Porsches have expensive wheels. In fact, I bet that some Porsches have a single wheel that costs more than the entire set of Titan 7 wheels. So I figured that I could trust FREED not to screw these up. I was not disappointed — Sean took expert care of everything. I brought them loose wheels and tires and they were gracious enough to put them all together for me. Probably because they felt bad that I was trying to make an SC300 go fast. Don’t bother them with your ratty drift missile, OK?

 

Titan 7 wheel and Nankang tire on the balancer
Yes, I make sure to balance my setup.

Some folks don’t bother to balance their setup, drifters especially. For the marginal time and expense it adds, why wouldn’t you bother? At 130MPH+ every ounce of balance counts.

 

Titan 7 logo on valve stem cap which is on valve stem on wheel
Here’s more of that Titan 7 attention to detail.

The valve stem cap and valve stem are black to match the wheels, and the cap has a bright white Titan 7 logo on it. That is a nice feature. It’s too bad that I will never run valve stem caps because you are constantly checking tire pressures at the track.

OK, tires mounted and balanced on the wheels. Time to test fit!

 

Nankang Sportinex AR-1 on Titan 7 T-S5 viewed from above sticking way out past fender
Houston, we have a problem.

I went from a 9.5″ wheel with an offset in the mid-20s to a 10.5″ wheel with a +22 offset and went from a 255 tire to a 295 tire. Titan 7 said they weren’t sure on fitment, and I said I’d make it work. And boy, do I have some work to do.

This is the first test fitment. Yes, the camber and toe are completely screwed up, which affects it a lot. But with the car on the ground there was no chance it was going to fit without doing something to the rear fender. And it didn’t look like just rolling the fender was going to cut it.

No boys and girls, we were going to have to full send it. We were going to have to go wider. A lot wider.

5 comments

    1. You’re not kidding @MattAtRedondo ! Sometimes you have to step back and look at the long path you took to get you are before you can appreciate it.

      Just don’t try to add up all the dollars you spent. That’s a bad idea!

  1. Those wheels look amazing. As an aside, you really should always run valve caps at the track. I run the little plastic ones because as you mentioned – every ounce counts.

    I’ve had debris or dirt get into the stem from an off track excursion and cause a deflation. Caps eliminate that possibility. Looking forward to the next installment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*