Wheel size

[Don]

Okay;

I am about to purchase the wheels and tires for the kit to get it ready to roll this summer.

I have an opportunity to get 17" wheels and rims as well as 18" wheels and rims. Obviously the 17" are a little cheaper but not significantly.

My question is:

Is there a noticable difference between 17 and 18" wheels on the 355. Would 17" fill the wheel wells properly overall?

I saw from Dave Newman's old 355 Berlinetta that his old Momos are 17" and they looked good. Would 17" and slightly higher profile tires do the same thing for me to fill in the wheel wells?

Thanks
Don

[-FROG-]

I don't k now for sure but here are my thoughts to pick your brain.
People in the car world do know 18's compaired to 17's on exotics. You'd be suprised how many of these "rice burners" out there know real wheel sizes on exotics.
I think 18's would fill the gaps much cleaner but 17's would probably get the job done cosmetically.
18" tires WILL BE MORE EXPENSIVE!!! Make sure you take that into account.
I don't know what car you are putting these on, but my friends Diablo would have looked much better with 18's. It was obvious they were 17's because they didn't fill the gap properly.

Good Luck!

[Ferrari Berlinetta]

Don,
You have several questions that you need to answer before you can deside 17" or 18". First, are you going for looks or performance? Second, are you are looking to just fill up the wheel well? Third, What is the difference in cost for both rims and tires?

Okay, now here is your trade off, lets say that you want to fill up your wheel well. We can do this using both a 17" and an 18" wheel tire combo. When you use a 17" rim, you will want to go with a higher profile tire to give you the height you are looking for to fill the wheel well. In the same sence that you will want to use a lower profile tire when using an 18" rim. By doing this you essentally keep the over height of the tire identical.

Now for the trade off's, using a lower profile tire with the 18" rim give you better performance with a harder ride while the 17" with a higher profile will give you a better ride but you lose some performance.

I will assume that the car came with 15" rims to begin with, when you change to a taller rim / tire you will have to recalabrate your speedometer and you will lose some of your "off the line" acceleration.

I personally do not think most people out ther can look at a rim and say it is a 17" or an 18" just by looking at it. That being said, I am sure that there are people who can but not many! On my kit, I have 16" rims with tall tires and they look just fine to me.

hope this helps some....

[mike d.]

i think 17s are enough ,i see alot of cars lately and they look likethey have wagon wheels on them.

[Mr355]

17s don't look bad at all. This red spyder, recently removed from Ebay, is using BBS Pininfarina style wheels in what I think was 17x7. A slightly taller tire would be in order. I believe they were discontinued however.

[goyal99]

My oninion is to go with the bigger size to fill the wheel opening...I dead giveaway for most replicas is when I look at the wheel profile and how they fit the body of the car...Most of them have a HUGE gap between the wheels and fenders...That to me is UGLY and distracting to the overall appearance of the car...

If you have the money to purchase bigger wheels with lower profile tires, go for it...The ride quality will suffer a little and your speedo might be off by a few ticks but who cares!! Do you really care if you're going down the road at 60mph or 63mph?? I don't....

Replicate the original look is more important in my opinion..

VK

[DKOV]

This car is a challenge car so don't assume the fender gap to the wheels is NORMAL for a street car. The fact it has 18 inch challenge wheels on it doesn't mean the wheels filled up the fender wells.

I have cars with both 17s and the real 18 355 rims on them and they both look great. 17s are fine. 16s are a little small.

DKOV -

[goyal99]

Nice work!!

I guess you're specializing in F355 replicas, right??

The white car looks like it's sitting up a bit high in the rear....Does it have the real 18" F355 wheels??....Or maybe has no drivetrain..

VK

[DKOV]

You guessed it... no drivetrane. No motor, no axles, no nothing

I have 325 lb springs in the rear and no weight to compress them. Even so, they are also adjustable and can't set the ride height until I get the motor back in. Which should be soon. Working on the final custom part right now and hope to have it finished this next week. From there, installation and the turbo crossover pipes get built. Then it's road worthy.

Good eye

DKOV -

[DKOV]

And yes, those are real F355 rims on the "white" car. Which is actually primer gray

DKOV -