Jadewombat wrote:
I think it's high time for someone to say something and call attention to the 800lb. gorilla sitting in the hallway.
Ahem.
Has anyone thought of widened fenders?! Seriously, why are all of you pre-programmed to instantly default to a narrowed-beam-blah-blah-whatever? You bend over backwards to fit this stuff on your bug, running a different beam which calls for a narrowed swaybar and narrowed tie rods, then it won't turn as good a radius...a with widened rims (or even without) it rides like poop! What would all of this narrowing stuff cost you, $1000 minus the rims, about the same for a set of fenders and respraying them. Me personally, I think the look of the wheels waaayy up inside the fenders looks kinda weird as well.
Look at the picture of that bug with widened fenders. It 'looks' like there is absolutely no clearance between the rims, this because someone took the time to engineer this correctly. When that wheel hits a bump you can bet front or rear that tire will correctly go up inside that fender and not mess up that expensive paint job on there. They've been doing this for years in Germany BTW with aftermarket stuff as they build their cars to actually be driven at high speeds on der Autobahn.
Buses don't have this option of course, but this is a bug we're talking about here. I'm not out to flame anyone, but I really don't like the 'default-narrowing' trend going on. Just presenting an easier option.
Dude, 3-4 inch beam with stock fenders is nowhere NEAR a grand and ya don't have those big ugly unproportionate low-quality (the ones I've seen) aftermarket fenders on the car. If ya want to keep the stock or semi-stock look, stock steel, and still want some custom wheels under there and you want to lower it, that's gotta be the only way to go unless ya have a superbeetle then ya don't have much of a choice AFAIK. I agree that anything beyond a 4" is excessive and looks out of place especially with stock size 4.5's (my opinion) but a 4" or even a 2" (to compensate for disc spindles) with the correct offset of wheel lets ya have the best of both worlds without having to match and respray existing paint jobs and ya still get to keep your shocks and not kill the ride quality. Yes it does mess with the turn radius but who cares really. Plus it's German steel. It all depends what you're after I guess. That's why there's the search button just for cases like this.
I did a 3" on my last beetle. It was a 69 with a ***stock sway bar*** yes I did say stock sway bar, drop spindles/discs, 195/50/15's on "VW" chromies. That car handled great with the 195/50's up front and still had plenty of meat to cushion the bumps out and lots of suspension travel Only drawback was it had KYB GR-2's up front which were a little too stiff that's why I use oil shocks on my driver. It also turned fairly well also but ya couldn't even tell it had a narrowed beam by looking at it. Everything just looked like it flowed perfectly with zero fender gap and no fat-chick fenders, and it worked perfectly on the mechanical end of things.
My current car's my daily driver and it does 130km/h no problem at all on the highway, handles like it's on rails, and it has zero stability issues on the front and doesn't kill my bladder from driving it so, I don't buy the "he took the time to do it right" comment. He put wide fenders over the wheels, instead of putting the wheels under the car. Where's the engineering there? Sounds like he's good with a wrench and a paint gun rather than a grinder and a welder. Mind you I haven't read the article, but it's a BJ beam VW there ain't much to 'em so I can't possibly think of something he's done anything different than anyone else has already done a million times over. There's no "wrong" or "right" way to do it. There's "your" way to do it and the right way to finish "your" way ie: using the right parts, tools, and knowledge.
As for my 67, it actually rides very nice with the stock oil shocks even with the front apron a couple inches off the ground. Sure it doesn't turn on a dime, that's why I have the gas pedal to help me out!
I have a couple friends running around with 6" narrowed no-shock poop-canned (slammed) old beetles that ride like a toilet. Not my cup of tea, but then again It's not my car so who am I to criticize? I didn't tell them they did it "wrong". They didn't tell me I did it "wrong". Same as I won't tell the guy with the testarrossa-mulholland-look 6"wider-bodied bug with super wide tires, he did it "wrong" either. There's no "wrong" way. Ya get what I'm puttin' down here? Gorillas belong in the wilderness, not in your hallway
And redhot, hopefully reading all this tech and first-hand experience stuff from others kinda gives you an idea of what kind of options you have. Bigger fenders? Smaller beam? 14' or 18's etc. Ya have options. Assuming you don't want to put pre-66 or post 68 widened fenders on a 67 (shame on you if you think about it!
) you're not gonna have a whole lot of options in the wheel/lowering department. If ya do want to put on bigger fenders drop me a line! I'll GIVE you a set of widened fenders for your original 67's!
