Trans Am Race Engineering Superlite 17x8 - now available with a useful backspace?

72bluNblu said

For reference, the 15x9's with 4 3/8" of backspace that autoxcuda runs with his 245/50/15's stick out a full 1" outside of where my 275/35/18's are. I'd have to fully flare my fenders to pull that off. Now, those 245/50/15's are only 24.7" tall, compared to the 275's on my car at 25.6", which is a big part of it. The other part is those fenders have been pushed out pretty significantly, that's not something you can run without doing some bodywork, even on a Barracuda.

Click to expand...

Yes there are multiple different things done to add fender clearance. And it’s really tight. It just barely clears.

The short tire is probably half the battle.

I think the using different approaches for clearance gives it the subtle look.

1) bend top of lip flat

2) baseball bat roll the lip out. That helps push the fender out some too

3) extend the top fender brace out 3/4”-1” to help push thing out and stay out

4) fold (or cut) bottom front fender. Key is to start high to reduce the angle. That tricks you eye into not noticing it.

1), 2), then 3) need to happen in that order.



















This was a little too aggressive. It’s like 3” at bottom. Really only needed to be 2”.




This is 17x8 with 5.5” backspacing 275/40/17