Today was a day to get a lot of different things accomplished. Lauren had to work, but I still had to help at Pipeline from 10:30-12:45 and then Bethany and Daniel were going to come over for dinner so I knew that I wasn't going to finish everything I wanted to. I started by setting the export brace and monte carlo bar (Scott Drake) in the engine compartment to make sure that they fit. Had the car been in an accident and not been properly repaired, the holes wouldn't have lined up. Fortunately, the front end is in good shape since all of the holes lined up perfectly.
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| Test Fit of Monte Carlo and Export |
Next I wanted to make sure that the 17x8" wide rims I bought were going to fit on my car. The fronts just barely fit without hitting the upper ball join on the control arm. I probably had less than 1/4" of space which I'll definitely need to fit on the tire. Although the rims are considered 8" wide, they are actually a total of 9" wide. Add on an 1/8" of tire hanging off of either side and you have a total of 9.25" of width. Multiple this by 25.4 to find out how many millimeters wide the tire needs to be and you come up with 234.95 or 235.
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| Front Pass. 17x8 Rim Space to Ball Joint |
The rears seemed to fit like a glove with the 5.5" of backspace. Rolling the quarter panel lips proved to also be a good idea since after the rolled lips I had about 1/2" of space from the edge of the rim to the inside edge of the rolled lip.I don't want to push my luck so I will put 245. Working the equation backwards it would look like this: 245/25.4= 9.65". Subtract the rim width from 9.65 and that leaves a total of .65" of tire hanging over the rim. Since there are two sides to the rim, only .65/2 or .32" of tire will be hanging over the rim.
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| Rear Driver's Side Rim Space |
Here is the front passenger side of the car with the rim completely mounted to give you an idea of how awesome these rims look:
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| Torq Thrust 2.1 in 17x8 |
After I wrapped up at Pipeline I stopped by Kragen and bought two Monroe gas shocks for the front of the car. I needed the shocks in order to mount the shock tower cap which was connected with the same bolts as the export brace. The engine bay looks very dressed up now with the satin finish suspension and it even matches the aluminum radiator.
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| Export Brace, Monte Carlo bar and Shocks Installed |
The shocks I bought just so happened to be a blue that is very close the the spark plug wires so they won't look completely out of place. There still need to be holes drilled on each side of the fender aprons and four holes drilled on the firewall side to accommodate the new export brace since I
welded in a piece of sheet metal across the back sometime last year.
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| New Monroe Shocks Installed |
I gave my dad the money to pick up the paint and primer as we hope to have it painted before summer is another distant memory. It is a two stage urethane paint by 4th Dimension. Of course it is Seaside Blue Metallic and we also bought some blue pearl to add to the first coat of clear. Below is a picture of the paint next to the pearl.
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| Seaside Blue Metallic Next to Blue Pearl |
Looks good! It is always a challenge to put wider rims on the front. I had to add spacers behind the rim to allow for the extra clearance even when I had original rims but went with a wider tire.
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