Race car wheel openings. Shoud I, or not?

[Mike DC]

Tooling up one single steel fender costs like $500,000 to $1,000,000. 

Trust me: 
Those bondo'd, electrical-taped, and pop-riveted-together 1960s NASCARS did not have custom-tooled fender stampings. 

[daytonalo]

I know that , but maybe just stamping the lip on a stock fender was a possibility . I will stop asking question now

[Johnny Daytona]

I  do realise they start with a stock fender with inner bracing removed , I didint know if they were sent out to be stamped again or what . The 1/2 lip , was it just simply sharp metal ?

Larry

You would hit it with as file to dull it some. but once you bent the lip up flat against the factory skin it would get some tack welds to keep it there. and being flat against the outer skin it was no threat to cut the tire of the mechanic.

[Johnny Daytona]

Tooling up one single steel fender costs like $500,000 to $1,000,000. 

Trust me: 
Those bondo'd, electrical-taped, and pop-riveted-together 1960s NASCARS did not have custom-tooled fender stampings. 

Thats right, as I noted earlier that the stamped  flares looked liked  half a spare tire well. It may well have been just that.  Not some special stamping.
     At that time I think the rule was that you had to use a factory fender and was only allowed to cut as much as needed to clear the tire . It was allowed to bubble the top for tire clearance and to flare the fender over the tire not to overhang beyond the cheek of the tire.

[Troy]

Interesting. So you basically just got a really wide tire and modified to fit? Or were all tires the same size due to rules?

Troy

[Johnny Daytona]

At that time I can't remember if Firestone still had tires in the then Nascar Grand National Division of not. There was a tire size limit and goodyear had tire recommendations for different tracks.  Short track tires was shorter and wider than a speedway tire, Even though each had the same tire width molded on the side wall. Track width on short track cars were wider than speedway cars.  Requiring wider, bigger flares on short track cars.

[nascarxx29]

 71 K&K pictures

[daytonalo]

In my opinion , the # 71 is the mack daddy of all  wing car stock cars !!!!!! That is my next project , a dead nuts on #71 ! Anybody have a 70 body minus int ?

[Mike DC]

That note about the spare-tire-well stamping is interesting.  I know the fenders were hand done but I don't know what they actually made them out of. 

And there wasn't any one consistent way to do those fenders at all.  Some cars' recut front fender shapes still resembled the stock wheelwells in the front, whereas other cars' wheelwells looked totally customized to fit the tires. 



Tires:

In those bais-ply days, they often ran a taller tire on the RF corner than they did on the left.   
And there was definitely a short-track/superspeedway difference too.   

The tires were like 86-88" around in diameter (that's how they talked about the heights back then).  The tread widths were only about 8-8.5" wide on those tires, but they were tall sidewalls and they had almost no tread depth. 

[Ghoste]

I thought it was sometime during the 1969 season that they went to treadless tires?

[Mike DC]

 
I dunno exactly.  They were on slicks by the early/mid 70s, but the treads hung around a while.  I don't think slicks were there in '69 but it might have been '70 or '71.


A lot of tire changes happened later than people tend to remember. 
Radials have been on the streets since the late 1970s, but there were still a few Winston Cup races being run on bias-ply tires all the way into like 1990. 

 

[Ghoste]

The Talladega tire walkout would have still been the treaded tires would it not?  So that would place slicks no earlier than that race from, what September 69?

[nascarxx29]

 The walkout group was called the PDA .I believe it was the inagural Sept 14 1969 Talladega race in AL
http://www.racefanguide.com/editorial4.html
\

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

this #71 charger just set a speed record this year

BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS, Utah, October 10, 2007 — Arrington Engines, Inc. today announced that Russ Wicks, has set a new stock car world speed record of 244.9 miles per hour, which has been confirmed by Guinness World Records. Wicks successfully achieved the record on Tuesday October 9 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Northwestern Utah while driving a 2007 Dodge Charger powered by the Arrington Engines' R5P7 built to NASCAR specifications. The new record shatters Wicks' previous stock car world speed record of 222 miles per hour.

Wicks' vehicle was developed with the backing of the Dodge Motorsports Engineering Group and Arrington Engines.

"I'm totally thrilled," said Wicks. "It's an amazing feeling to push yourself to the edge and emerge victorious. I couldn't have done it without Arrington and Dodge, who have supported me in my attempt from the very beginning."

[Magnumcharger]

It might be fast....but it still has no style....

[A383Wing]

 

[daytonalo]

No style , but it has one thing right , 2 DOORS !!!!!

[Johnny Daytona]

Trying to claim the record.They should be ashamed. Then they should be drug behind Bobby's car at 200 . . That is no where close to a stock body. There is not a production part on it. This record means as much to me as Barry Bonds home run record. Its took cheating to reach it. And should not be recognized 
      They can claim to out perform the previous record holders. But never come close to out classing them.

[Howie]

           It may be a dodge but it aint a wing car. What kind of drugs are you pushing charger punk!

[daytonalo]

Damn right

[pettybird]

Imagine what the original NASCAR drivers thought of the wing cars-- 

"In my day we didn't even have full seatbelts!  Look at all that fabrication!  That's not stock--that's cheating!"



...Technology marches on.




It's totally cool that they used the old school font for the 71, though.

[Johnny Daytona]

Understand that a 52 Hudson Hornet was no comparison for a 69 Daytona.  And the 69 Daytona is no comparison for the new Charger of today.  What I am saying is that trying to claim a record held by one class of car by using a car that would fall into a total different class is wrong. They are compairing  cars that was built based on completely different rules. Claiming to have broke a record by a different type of car is stupid. Now if he had built a similar "stock" car and went out and beat the record, that would be differrent .



   And the discussion has got along way from wheel wells and fender flares.
     

[Mike DC]

 
Modern NASCAR.    I fail to have an opinion.

 

[Cooperman]

I love this look, and I've long considered a street version of a US stock car, even a mid seventies version such as... *ahem* a Monte Carlo! 
How much would the combination of wider rims, fatter rubber and considerably lower ride height affect the turning circle?
Would it make it impractical for street use? Is there enough scope in the factory lock stops to avoid tire contact?

[Mike DC]

Depends on the car & specifics.

I'm not the authority on it, but I think the NASCAR wheels in that era were running a 5" backspace.  (Most typical 15x7 or 15x8 muscle-era cast aluminum aftermarket mags were around 4.5" backspace.)  The 5" would probably be just barely enough to clear the front balljoints and not a hair more. 

It probably wouldn't seriously screw up the driveability, although the fender/inner fenderwell clearance is absolutely out the window as this whole thread demonstrates.   On an old Mopar the tires would hit the subframe framerails (on the rear edge of the tire when it's turned inward there) as a stopper to the turning circle.  But they already do that anyway on half the popular tire sizes as it is.