Alpina 17" et12
- Thread starter BBOY
- Start date
8.5” ET12 is going to be tough up front. You are going to have a lot of poke. If you roll the fenders it just might clear. My 8x17 ET20 with a 3mm spacer clears. My 235’s are so wide that it is hard to do any comparisons. Who knows about turning while cycling the suspension. You could machine the wheel flange a bit. You would be much better off trying to trade someone with an 8” square setup so they could run staggered.
My 17x8 ET20 lip clears the unrolled rear fender by about 6-7mm. An 8.5x17 ET12 wheel would be 15mm closer to the fender lip than my wheel. The fender lips themselves are about 25mm. So if you roll the rears they would fit and look pretty good IMO.
Disclaimer: The physicists may chime in with active tire load and other armchair science stuff.
I think the look would garner more negative comments than positive unfortunately. I have seen staggered diameter setups that can look good when done right. One of my favorite e9’s has staggered diameters. Given the tight clearance of the 17’s and your abundance of 16”’s, I would skip the 17’s. I would also hate to have you buy a set of 8.5” wheels based off of my one data point.
While I like 17’s on e9’s, I personally don’t like the look of 17” Alpinas on a coupe. As far as the soft line with the cap removed, I think they look pretty good with the centers painted black. You can always use plastidip if you don’t want it to be permanent.
At one time I had a discussion with Carl Nelson about the wheel size for E9 . He said as you increase the factory size from 14” you put more stress on the chassis. So he wouldn’t go over 16” for his own E9 unless the car has some reinforcements! Specially for the rear shock mounts !
Best wishes !