348 wheels on a 308?

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57388&highlight=drawing+308

I like the stock wheels better, but here ya go.

 

I'm not a big fan of 348 wheels, especially on a 308.
But if you were to use them, you would have to purchase spacers.

 

In addition to needing spacers (and you'll actually need what I would call "adapters", where the adapter is bolted to the hub and the wheel is bolted to the adapter with the stock lugbolts, because the offset difference is so large), you might need to fudge the tire centerlines out a bit because of the extra wheel width in order to clear the suspension pieces (but I don't know that for sure).

Contact Paul Hill at (Sponsor) Hill Engineering -- he'll have the best price on the hardware you'd need (and probably already have past experience with the 348-to-308 fitment). See:

http://www.customferrariparts.com/homemainferrari.htm

and click on "wheel spacers".

PS I think your plan is reasonable. I'd give a small premium for the 348 wheels (and the required hardware) on a driver 308 vs having the (obsolete) 14" wheels -- JMO.
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Pictures I found last year on FChat:
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I can only add that the Hill spacers are not the best price you can get for a good spacer. I found a guy in california that made my spacers for me and the price was about 1/4 of the Hill price if I remember correctly. I also have a set of 348 wheels that are chromed I'd sell you for about $700 plus shipping.

 

Why would you post this without giving the name/contact information of your supplier? Can they supply the necessary materials to put 348 wheels on a 308?

If you acted as the "project coordinator/designer" and just hired a Machine Shop to produce a flat Aluminum spacer to your design or prototype, I can believe your statement (and is what I would have done too, if I had such a need ), but that's a long way from someone who wants a project done and all the effort they want to provide on the front end is "I want to put 348 wheels on a 308". IMO, you just paid yourself the $ difference in your time expended -- I'm wasting my life the same way

 

I didn't give any more specific info on the fellow in California because I didn't have it on hand last night at 11pm, or whenever I posted. I am about to go to work, so I still don't have it. I will post it later. The guy in Cali does not provide a turn key solution. You need to know the size of spacer you need and some other dimensions. He builds a hubcentric spacer that bolts to the hub and then wheel bolts to the spacer. It was, no joke, about $65 a spacer if I remember correctly.
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I note that the spacer pictured isn't hubcentric to the wheel. If I had gone and had mine made (rather than buying mine from Jason at www.dexmllc.com !) I'd have spent the extra dollars to get it made truly hubcentric. Concentricity concentricity concentricity!
BTW, the big cost in getting the Hill Engineering stuff isn't the spacers, they're fairly cheap, it's the new lug bolts!

 

When I got my spacers, the fellow could have made them hubcentric to the wheel, but I skipped that option (as far as I can understand what the guy was saying). But, I cannot detect any vibration or any other imbalance from my set up. I didn't spend squat on new bolts either as I needed a slightly different size to bolt my spacer to the hub than my original bolts were good for, so I went to Les Schwab and they had a vast array of bolts that worked and cost about $2 a bolt. I still need to find my invoice so I can give you the guys name and website.

 

OK, it's real simple, go to wheeladapter.com that's where I got mine from. The toughest part was getting the guy my specs. He wants you to send them by email and then he will make them. I had to call him once to remind him to look at my quote request. Once he knew what I wanted, it took him about 2 days to fill my order and ship it to me. I hope this helps.

 

That $65 price is outstanding -- even for a non-hub-centric-at-the-wheel, male-stud adapter (and thank you for posting the source). However, that source also quotes an additional fee ($20) for the hub-centric-at-the-wheel feature so I don't see how $85 can fairly be called "1/4 of the Hill price" (which I just converted as ~$120 each). I find the price of some things, like 308 distributor caps, to be utterly ridiculous like everyone else, but, in this case, I don't see a value problem with either $120 each buying you the fitment information, the design, and the fabrication (and a gaurentee that the project will work) or $85 each buying you only the fabrication of your own design (which has no gaurentee and requires upfront work by the Buyer) -- JMOs.

 

That's one thing I do have to say about the stuff from Hill Engineering (remember I was treated very well by Jason at www.dexmllc.com ) is that it certainly looks like nice stuff! It's not like the back sides of things are show polished or anything, but it's nicely made, no questions about that.

 

I thought the Hill spacers were quoted as about $120 English Pounds. Isn't that about $280 each? Actually, you are right, I just looked, they are about $135 pounds a pair, so, that's more like $300 us per pair, then add shipping. So I was wrong, it's more like 2.5 times the price.

 

Your math is still a little bit fuzzy -- it's actually $122 each. The shipping depends on location -- think a person in the Netherlands can order from the supplier you suggested without extra cost? I'd agree that for the US end-user there is the added shipping expense, but $300 for getting a "no hassle gaurenteed to work" pair still seems a reasonable value to me compared to $170 for a "design-it-yourself" pair.

 

Does anyone else find it comical how much difficulty there seems to be here in developing a cost comparison?

wheeladapter.com:
$65 + $20 for hubcentric each = $170/pair + 10x 2.something for bolts = ~$200/pair

Hill Engineering (direct pricing, you can check at www.dexmllc.com, too):
135GBP/pair = $243/pair + shipping =<$300/pair

Wheel bolts (each, count how many you need depending on what you've got on hand and what lengths you'll need):
$2.something from a few places for bolts or studs & nuts that will hold you car together
$20 each for Hill Engineering with that nice chrome finish!

REMEMBER: the front bolts on a 308 need to be 10mm longer than the rears to get through the very thick brake hat!

 

Are you going to nit pick me to death. I was trying to save the guy some money. I was under the impression that the British Pound was trading at more than two pounds to the dollar. Excuse my fuzzy math gut I wasn't checking the exchange rates. I'll try to be more precise next time.

 

One more thing I forgot. I believe in order to fit the 348 wheel to the 308, the spacers (at least for the rear) need to be quite large. I believe they are thicker than any of the spacers offered by Hill.

 

I know Hill do up to 40mm....

 

...and one of those 308s has the wheels on the wrong side.

 

Actually, being an engineer I tend to be precise with my numbers, and worked out which spacer it would need to be for 348 wheels on a 308, and I believe the answer was 40mm (it was on another computer so I can't get the numbers at the moment). I quoted the Hill Engineering price for the size I determined to be required. (Honestly, I didn't know what was meant by things like "$120 British Pounds", so I thought once I'd gone and figured it all out for myself, I might try to help others that might still be lost.)

 

Being impulsive, I purchased a set of 348 wheels for my 78 308 and I was also going that route. I was advised by another member of Fchat who had done the swap that spacers larger than 40mm would be needed. I believe it was an off number, something like 47mm, so, a custom spacer would need to be made. I thought it was going to be too expensive, so I went with a set of 17" OZ wheels that I was told would fit my 308 with no spacers. Well, that wasn't true and I ended up using 1.3" spacers on the rear and none on the front. If you run a search on this topic, I think you can find the thread where the guy gives the exact sizes needed to fit the 348 wheels to the 308.

 

Here is an email from "Ted" who has done a successful install of these wheels on his 308:

To start with, I used Paul Hill to make the spacers. Here's what he had to say about 348 wheels.

**************************************
The 308 has +11mm offsets for both front and rear. The 348 has +49mm on the fronts and +68mm for the rears (certain 1994 USA cars had a wider rear track and these wheels are +43mm offset and use a 80mm under the head length bolt).

To bring the 348 wheels back on centre line, the car would need 38mm spacers for the front (with 1/4" extra each side (7 1/2" rim)) while the rears would need 57mm spacers (with 1/2" extra each side (9" rim)). It would be advisable to check that there is enough clearance behind the wheels to avoid interference with the shocks.

**************************************

It turned out that the wheels I found on eBay were the special wider rear track. Hence they required a different spacer than the standard. When I bought the wheels, the rear wheels came with the 80 mm bolts, which was the tip off.

To make sure I was buying the correct spacer, I purchased some 14 x 1.5 mm all-thread, and cut off three pieces to about 6" length. I then placed some nuts on the studs, set them to the calculated height, mounted the wheel, and checked the clearance between the wheel and the shock. The closest inteference is actually between the inner edge of the rim and the bottom flange of the shock when the car is on stands, and the wheel dropped to it's lowest position. When the car is lowered on to the suspention, the clearance increases. I have a pix showing this simple test fixture, but I don't see any way to attach a pix to an email.

To calculate the spacer width needed, you simply subtract the 308 offset (11 mm) from the 348 offset. For the front, this is 49 mm - 11 mm = 38 mm. As "custom" spacers cost about twice as much as the standard ones, I bought 40 mm spacers for the front. This placed the front wheel centerline 2 mm further out, an insignificant amount for handling, providing sufficient clearance when the wheels are turned stop-to-stop.

For the rears, you need either 68 mm - 11 mm = 57 mm spacers, or if you have the wider rims you need 43 mm - 11 mm = 32 mm spacers. In my case, I had the wider rims, and I ended up ordering 34 mm spacers, just to give myself a little extra clearance. I added 2 mm to the calculated spacer width and ended up with the same additional width as the front.

Now, if you end up needing 57 mm spacers, I would buy 60's after checking your clearance. It will save you a lot of money, and the car will handle perfectly, with the center line of the tire shifted 3 mm to the outside. You'll also have good alignment with the fender.

You need the Type II spacers. You need to email Paul and ask him for a special link to order non-standard widths if you end up with the wider rear wheels. Else, you can just place an order at http://www.customferrariparts.com/homemainferrari.htm.

Other notes: The 348 wheels are directional, that is they are asymetrical and have a "correct" side of the car for mounting. The recessed flange is to the back of rotation. I had some of mine wrong in the on-line pix.

I couldn't be happier with these wheels. The car tracks like it's on rails, and you'll have to pull about .9 G to break it loose. Plus the looks are great. Good luck on your installation.

If you'd like to copy this email and put it on line for others considering this upgrade, it's fine with me. If you would like me to send pix of the wheels and fixtures, email me from your personal address at [email protected].

Ted