How do you modify a car to fit wider wheels

[grant_3250]

Hi All,

I'm currently working on a Fujimi Mazda Savanna GT. I'm looking at converting it to a drag car (in the vain of a Mazda RX3)

There is no way the drag wheels from Hippie Hemi kit I have will fit under the current wheel arches. I presume there will be a fairly drastic modification needed to get the wheels to fit so i thought i'd ask for tips before i start. Cheers

[Miatatom]

Here's one idea for wider fenders.

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=55926

[grant_3250]

Hu Miatatom, thanks for the reply. i don't want to flare the guards though, rather modify the under carriage of the car to fit the wider wheels.

[astroracer]

This is called "tubbing" or "back-halving". Do a search. There are a lot of how to's out there. This can be done by "kit-bashing", adding the back half of another kit, or scratch building the components you need.

Google "Chris Alston" this is a company that supplies the 1:1 builders with these components. There is a nice tutorial on that site that walks you through back halving an early Mustang. The process is the same for any vehicle.

Mark

[ScaleDale]

Here's a link to the Community Build thread for Pro Street. All of the cars are back-halved. Lots of different approaches.

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=68508&hl=%20pro%20%20street&page=1

Dale

[Ace-Garageguy]

The car you're working on is a unibody, and essentially, you'll be building a traditional rectangular tube frame (or round-tube, if you want to get a little more radical) under the rear of the car to take the place of the unibody structure...which is not otherwise easily modified to accommodate wide tires. This is referred to as "back-halfing", as noted above.

The original structure is removed, a subframe is constructed and fitted in to the space, anchored to the remaining original structural elements, and floors and inner wheel-wells are fabricated to close everything up.

Mustangs are also unibody cars, and this is a simple back-half frame that replaces the original structure.

It allows massive tires to be installed without flaring the outer fenders...

Edited March 30, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy