The most common question we received at Motor Ex and on social media is about the wheels and offset on the the XF, now to me the wheels you choose and the offset you run can absolutely make or break your build, you could spend 50k on a paint job and another 50 on running gear but if you do not get your wheel choice, stance and offset right the whole thing just doesn't look right.
So first off the wheel we run on the XF is a Bassett Racing NASCAR rim they aren't a knock off version they are the made via the exact same shop that supplies the wheels to the NASCAR teams, I've seen a few comments where people think that they are D hole 4wd steely but I assure you they are the real thing, we imported them via Summit Auto parts and they are surprisingly quite cheap costing around $100 a rim. We are running 15x8 with an offset of +6mm.
The tyres we are running are from Hoosier and they are a full slick tyre, we choose this tyre as its what the Touring Car Masters category runs and by running the same tyre as them it gives us access to purchasing used decent tyres from the teams as they try run new tyres in most session even though the tyres still have plenty of life left in them, so far we get our tyres via Wayne Mercer who runs a Phase 3 XY GT in the TCM series, The tyres retail for around $450 a corner, we pay a'lot less for a full set. The front tyre is a 245/50/15 and the rear runs a 275/50/15 and I think it gives the car a pretty mean stance, back tyre sizing is something I really wanted to get right and is the main reason I chose to build the car for VICV8's rather then a category like Improved Production, VicV8's allow you to run what ever tyre you want while IPRA only allow for the one control tyre that doesn't really have a tyre size that will fill the guards of the big Falcon nicely.
The offset of the wheels was the hardest part to get right, I spent many many nights trying to figure out what offset I wanted to run, this is the most crucial part of the whole build, to many that will sound insane but to me if the car doesn't look good then you've failed, and without the right offset the whole look of the car can fall apart. Im pretty happy with the stance of the car and the offset i've chosen but in saying that we have added 10mm spacers to each corner and if anything I wouldn't mind adding a couple more mm's to the rear if I can.
Yes that is cloth tape you can see on the spoiler mounts, the spoiler was only plasti dipped to quickly get it ready for Motor Ex, it'll all be coming off this week to be sent away for powder coating and all the little nuts on the spoiler mounts need to replaced with nylon lock nuts as we lost half the nuts on the way home from Motor Ex.
We have a few more stickers to add to the car that we are really excited about so watch this space!
I love the front of the car it came up so nice but it is missing something it really needs a front splitter, im not 100% sure how we are going to do it yet but the main goal is like the rest of the car to make it not stand out and be an eye sore and keep it clean and tidy.
The car looks relatively complete but its still very far from it, we still need to complete the brakes, fuel system, exhaust, tailshaft, front splitter, and a heap of other bits and pieces oh and a full set of wheel nuts on it!
One thing we have been working on is the exhaust witch we shall show over the next few weeks, tucking it up nice and high is going to be a problem and ground clearance is gonna be an even bigger problem but we will not be raising the car we will find a way!
The front end of the car is 99% done but i've recently been told about a trick Shelby used to do back in the day called the Shelby drop, its moving the upper control arm mounting holes down 1 inch, supposedly this has a dramatic improvement on handling, if anyone has done this before let us?