B6s & H&Rs. Can this be correct?

[Blib]

Here's a couple of photos of the front wheels of my 1990 Porsche 964.

Offside....


Nearside.....


Notice the offside front in this shot....


I recently had a very reputable Porsche specialist fit Bilstein B6s and H&R springs. They also set up the suspension correctly.

To my eye, the front wheels don't look centred in the wheel well. And, when I compare the fronts, the offside wheel further forward than the nearside. The garage say that the car is set up well - indeed, it drives very well - and that sometimes the right geometry means that a wheel wont be centred.

However, the offside wheel is so close to the bodywork that it very occasionally rubs against it.

I'd like some opinions on this before I go back to the garage. Is this a normal situation? Should I go somewhere else to have things checked over? Or, should I nuke them from orbit and get them to sort it out?

Edited by Blib on Tuesday 29th December 21:37

[one eyed mick]

Dont nuke any body!!! go back and ask politely if there is any reason for the discrepancies it could be down to poor fitting body panels and a miriad of other things using an uncontrolled mouth will never get you any freinds, ok its a porsche but its made by people on a production line not induvidually hand crafted by a watch maker!

[Blib]

Thanks for the reply. Im not one to rant and rave. I was just using the PH vernacular.

To be fair, they did mention bodywork 'discrepancies' may be an issue. It's just that I didn't expect the wheel to rub on the arch.

[Evoluzione]

You need to be more precise about which part of the bodywork which wheel is rubbing against, although looking at the pics it's maybe the bumper as you can see one side is set further back than the other.

Edited by Evoluzione on Thursday 31st December 10:02

[tdiquattro]

There are a couple of factory mods for 17s and wider wheels/tyres. Fit spacers to the steering rack to limit steering lock, and trim/cut away the wing where the bumper meets it at the front (where the rubber section is)

[lanan]

Measure the wheelbase left compared to right.
That will start to give you a clue as to what is amiss

[SlimJim16v]

Get a 4 wheel alignment. It'll tell you if your front and rear 'axles' are in parallel.

Edited by SlimJim16v on Friday 1st January 16:31

[stevieturbo]

Did they give you a printout of all alignment details ?


Sometimes straight ahead alignment of all 4 wheels and the cars body itself dont always match up....however if there was a problem outside of straight ahead, this would then show when they turn the front wheels as other alignments would then go askew if there was a suspension problem.

Hence a full geometry check is important and not only in the straight ahead position.

[chrisgixer]

Absolutely no idea about the Porsche front axle set up, but on most cars I'd suspect the front subframe is set too far forward giving excess castor. Some times they set one side further forward to counter the road crown, so it's less likely to drift to the gutter. Not something I like as the car never drives straight, (on the few occasions I've had that issue), as the other side of the coin is, when you do get a flat straight bit of road, the car tends to pull the other way slightly.

Certainly something in the set up is giving a wheel position too far forward, as you say.