Tucked Wheels

I was cruising through some random old pics and cam across these. Some of them are late 90’s BTCC cars I saw at the 2008 Autosport show. In BTCC they are limited to stock fender wells (or “arches” the Brits call them).

The Rauh Welt Porsche 911 is an example of a good looking tucked wheel.

Here’s a Ford BTCC car with the sheet metal stretched pretty hardcore.

I’m not sure what kind of car this is, but I think it was an Audi BTCC car.

Here’s the front of that same Audi. 

Here’s a Nissan Primera BTCC car with the sheet metal stretched pretty hardcore.

Here’s the front of Steve’s 350z time attack car slammed.

Now I’m not saying these pics are particularly bad ass. These are just some random pics. While these cars may look super aggressive super low, they probably have their suspensions redesigned to work with the super low ride height since they are proper unibody race cars. You cannot just slam any car and expect it to handle well. In the process of altering a vehicle’s ride height, you could substantially change the camber and toe curves, roll centers, any MANY other things throughout the suspension’s stroke. Mike Kojima wrote some really good articles on suspension, but you’ll have to dig up some old issues of 2007 Sport Compact Car Magazine to read them since I don’t see them on the web anymore. Maybe Mike will change the words around and republish them on Moto IQ (Mike, you reading this or what???).

You see how all those drift cars like to stuff 18×12? -40 offset wheels under +50mm wide body S13 fenders, slam the car, and run -7° camber? Each and every one of those fools are idiots. Just because it looks “crazy” doesn’t mean it works. “Demon camba” (a la early 90’s JDM race cars) is just fucking dumb too. It’s just not that simple to slam a car with big wheels (and big outer lips) and make the handling work. I am mostly an engine/turbo/fuel injection guy, but I learned a lot about wide body fenders, big wheels, and suspension when Mike was helping me out with the XS GT-R. Once you work with Mike, you tend to learn stuff just hanging around him. Bother him on MotoIQ if you want him to “rewrite” those suspension articles.

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