Rolling a hatch to fit 255/40/17 on a 17x9+17 front & rear

[a_ahmed]

Oh my God... my body is tired what a frickin work out lmao.

Okay so I MAYBE got like 10mm in the rear out of this... or a bit more but still not enough... this sucks. I'm broke money-wise so fender flares and wideboy overfenders etc... are out of the question...

Really tiring and full of effort and of little results so far.

Any suggestions as to what to do? Techniques?


I've got an eastwood fender roller... a mallet hammer or however you call that rubber hammer...

I managed to flatten somewhat the lip its all in, so then i started pushing out the edge but its kinda hard to make stick anymore...

I don't know HOW those zilvians make their lips and whatever flare the hell out like they wana pop out.....

Help... I spent like an hour or two hours on the driver's side rear... still got lots of LOTS of work to do..

[McCoy]

You should be able to fit these without to much work. What is your current camber setup in the rear, -1.5 to -2 of camber will help the rear fit without to much work I'd think.

[sr20goofus]

use a heat gun or hair dryer to heat the metal and paint just a touch, itll help pull the fenders out

sounds like the offset you are using for the rear is too much.

[a_ahmed]

argh racepar1 fit the same **** and if i recall he's running like 17x9+15 or something, regardless his are a nice fit so he managed it... i dunno wtf im doing wrong... i wana go at it again... but done for the night... i saw some pix of how some guys flare em out its nuts... should have a gaping hole even the way these things are flared out i mean check it out:





From before:



To after:





I set the heatgun to like 5xx~ degrees so it was hot lol... i was trying to pull outwards the whole thing... after one guy came in the shop apparently he works at a body shop he suggested i bang the top and push outwards the lip... but it was going mega slow... if anywhere... hmm

[cazman]

Do a fender roll with a trolley pole (not a newspaper)
And then use 2 & 3 inch pipe steel and keep upping the size as you go along.
But at a certain point your guards pop in from the stress on the metal. The pros use a cold hammer teqnique and when your pro you will keep the metal smooth as, but its not easy.
If I was local I would do it for you, there are heaps of videos on in on youtube, but your car must be slammed and have big offset for it to work at all.

It only takes about 10 minutes, and is painless unlike a guard roller

[McCoy]

Ahmed - how much camber do you have in the front/rear...

[SOneThreeCoupe]

The first thing you need to do is flatten the fender lips. When you flatten the lip, you take away some of the rigidity of the metal.

Then take it in steps. Roll a little at a time, or else you'll never get done. Also mess with the delrin roller angle to see what works best.

Also, I run about -3.5* front and -2.75* rear. It helps fitment, and it just plain works.

[Longfellow]

I flaired my S14's fenders pretty easily. Just angle the head to about 45*. Start on the top of the fender and work backwards and forwards then increase pressure as you watch the fender bend.

[a_ahmed]

Okay news flash update... hooly crap LOL

I flared it good alright, I would say a good 30mm extension.

What was the issue? Well, on the eastwood fender roller... there's like a two step pin... so i had it on the one that tucked the arm in... in the beginning this was necessary, but once i rolled it, in order to flare it out, had to change to the second pin... that put the arm out alot... afterwards made the job easy.

So as was suggested yeah, hammer the lip and rolled lip at the same time to flatten... then pushed outwards with arm... then finally today figured out to change arm pin position so it stuck out hardcore.

On top of that set heat gun to max and heated lip and top outter metal even from inside i heated it...

And last but not least hammered gently with big rubber mallet hammer the top metal above lip as i was pushing.

Last but not least used mallet hammer as its pipe shaped lowered car and pushed back and forth the car.

Once all was done and done, I have like 1" space between top of tire and lip... i need to seriously lower car, car is already lowered 1.5" from stock, so with the coilovers uuh.. i dunno... i don't wana lower more than 2.0" total from stock as its bad for geometry but does look ugly heh.

Anyways my stupidity not having experiencing with this.. but man this is awesome.

Unfortunately my paint suffered a bit (the lips), but i think im gona sand it and primer it and spray paint it until i can afford a paintjob.

Totally worthwhile tool to have...!

The rears are so no issue, can fit much larger tires taller and wider... but the front i have yet to see... it has lots of room though..

[racepar1]

Dude, it took me like 45 mins TOTAL to do both sides! No trickery whatsoever involved, not even a heat gun. As far as a + 17 being too little offset, ummmmm.......NO! I am running 17X9 +12 gram lights right now with 255's. Unless you wanna run the car low, like almost tucking the tires low, it is no big deal to pull the fenders. Hell I didn't even have to pull my rears any extra to clear the +12's (I used to run +20's). Remember that the rear suspension gains an assload of camber under compression, so even if the tires are sticking slightly past the fenders statically when the suspension compresses they will still clear.

[Caithness]

*following post has no technical content or any other value but I can't help but put my two cents in*

I understand that you've gotta do what you've gotta do to get some real meat under an S-chassis, but from an aesthetic perspective I can't stand the finished product with these fender roll jobs. Maybe if it's an S14- which is curvier to start with- if you use a proper fender roller, if you keep it even, if it's slammed on massive wheels and tires and cambered and pretty much sitting on the lip. Otherwise, especially on the S13s I've seen, it just looks weird and obvious. Doesn't match the rest of the car at all.

From my research the other downside is that even if you keep the fenders from popping in, they often pop themselves in eventually, anyway. That would really be a bummer if in the interim you had the car painted.

To try to end this post on a less negative and flame-provoking note, if you want to avoid the rolling route, what are the options for a good, cheap, unobtrusive fender flare? Something that integrates into the body lines pretty well. I've seen fender flares on old Z cars that looked great except that they had big obvious bolts as a styling thing. A simple flare to wrap around the wheel well which you could then mold into the surrounding bodywork could look very nice, I think- if such a thing exists.

[Longfellow]

S13s have the main problem with the rear fenders caving in, but with the S14 there is a pressed line that runs the entire length of the car that seems to help prevent the Cave in problem the S13's have. I still need to touch up my rear fenders because they are slightly uneven side to side and there is one flat spot that needs to be pulled out better.

[Longfellow]

This is how my car currently looks.