Upholstery finally done in my 412

Discuss with fans and owners of the most luxurious aircooled sedan/wagon that VW ever made, the VW 411/412. Official forum of Tom's Type 4 Corner.
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ubercrap
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Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2004 8:00 pm

Post by ubercrap »

Wally wrote:Great job. Well done!!!
ubercrap wrote: I was starting to put together a set of the very similarly themed 16X5.5 Porsche alloy spare wheels awhile back, but ended up selling what I had. I still think these would look awesome (in silver/black/polished)!
I agree, but which tires did you put on the 5,5x16?? I found it to be a very difficult tire width to get anything fitting nicely.
I just found out that Nankang makes some 165-185 width 35-50 series tires in 16 and 17" diameters, check it out:

http://www.webezgo.com.tw/~nankang/inde ... 2bc6cdffbc

165/45 16" tire is listed for 5.5" width wheel.

Conceivably, one could maybe cheat a bit with the 165/40 17" tire the 17 x 5.5" Porsche spares of the same design could be used!
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raygreenwood
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Post by raygreenwood »

The 5.5" rim width works perfectly with a 205/60-15...fits under all the corners and fenders...and is a major handling upgrade. But thats a 15" rim. You may have to use something like a 195 to keep from dinging the fender on a 16" rim. Don't know for sure.
But....anything below a 195 width is pretty much a step backward IMHO. Ray
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ubercrap
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Post by ubercrap »

True, with the Type 4, there is so much room, running a wider, modern tire when possible makes sense. If you recall, Specky VW Freak is running 18x8" Porsche wheels on the front of his 412 with 225/40 18 tires! He said slight rubbing made him think about 205/35's. I bet 215/40's might work too. Of course, I've driven daily with 40 series tires before on several different cars, and I think I would only have them for show purposes now. I must be getting old.
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vwfye
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Post by vwfye »

i've 195/50/15s on the front of mine with 8 spokes (completely wrong offset) and 205/65/15s on the rear with zero rubbing and the nose on my car is definitely lower than stock!
Notchback mid-engine speedster
Little Giant Killer 3
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