With the weather starting to warm up a bit here in the Northeast, and me getting antsy, I installed my Forgeline wheels a couple of days ago, as well as an MSI stud kit. Happy with the results. This will be my combo summer daily / track setup. Now we just need to consistently stay out of the 30° weather...

Details as follow:

Forgeline GZ3R with Yokohama AD08R

19x9 with 255/35-19 front
19x11 with 305/30-19 rear

Mounting them on the car took a while, since I installed the studs as well. I also took my Dremel with a sanding bit to the three center flanges on each wheel hub to clean up the rust. Normally I wouldn't bother to do this since this area is covered by the center wheel caps, but the Forgelines don't have center caps. I'll probably look into having the wheel hubs painted with a thin coat of rust-proof black.

Initial thoughts:

• I was excited to use my new Jackpoint jack stands--I got them specifically for this car. Unfortunately, the car sits so low that, even with the low-profile jack pad in place on my jack, the assembly is a couple of cm too tall to get under the car. Possible solutions would include driving the car up on wood planks first, or raising the car a bit using the other jacking point on that side first. Alternatively, I could look for another jack with a lower saddle height than the one on my standard aluminum "racing" jack. In any case, I'm a bit disappointed that it wasn't a plug-n-play solution, since the concept behind the Jackpoint stands is so clever.
• There is good clearance between these 19" wheels and the rear lower control arms. I was hoping this would be the case. Probably 1cm or so of clearance.
• Between the 9" front and 11" rear widths of the Forgelines, and their offsets, they sit nicely close to the fenders, without being so close as to cause concerns about rubbing under compression. No spacers needed.
• The 19" wheels help to ameliorate the "brake rotors floating in a sea of nothingness" look of the OEM 20" wheel setup. The slightly larger GiroDisc rotors also help.
• The wheel-to-fender gap is slightly larger now, since the 255/35-19 and 305/30-19 tires have an overall diameter of about 0.8" less than the OEM 20s, but it still looks fine IMO.

Here are some updated pics. Looking forward to gaining experience with this car on track in the coming weeks.

 

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Those are very nice wheels!

 

Nice wheels!

 

Nice setup!

 

The rotors do look massive now.
Those tires should grip well.

 

Looks good!
Let us know what you think about the Yokohama. I have been thinking about using them as an 'all weather' track tire hoping they would perform somewhere between Michelin PSSs (nicer on the street but could use more grip on the track) and R888's on the dry.

 

what are the offsets

 

Will do. Can't wait to get back on the track.
Front: 19x9 ET49
Rear: 19x11 ET60

 

Had to get a new set sooner than expected and went for AD08R too. I'll have them at the track next week end. I'll be happy to share my thoughts too

 

An interesting detail. I weighed the wheels/tires prior to putting them on the car. The weights are with the tires mounted, but by using the TireRack database of tire weights and doing some math, I can get a rough estimate of the Forgeline weights vs. the OEM Carrera S wheels.

20x8.5" OEM BBS Carrera S wheel with 245/35-20 Pirelli Sottozero Serie II tire (24 lbs): 46.6 lbs total
20x11" OEM BBS Carrera S wheel with 295/30-20 Pirelli Sottozero Serie II tire (29 lbs): 57.4 lbs total

19x9" Forgeline GZ3R wheel with 255/35-19 Yokohama AD08R tire (28 lbs): 51.0 lbs total
19x11" Forgeline GZ3R wheel with 305/30-19 Yokohama AD08R tire (31 lbs): 56.3 lbs total

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20x8.5" OEM front: 22.6 lbs
20x11" OEM rear: 28.4 lbs

19x9" Forgeline front: 23.0 lbs
19x11" Forgeline rear: 25.3 lbs

So a very decent weight savings on the rear, and a half pound heavier on the fronts. The Forgeline fronts are likely heavier because, despite being 1" smaller in diameter, they're 0.5" wider.

I must say that I'm impressed with the relatively low weights of the OEM wheels, given that they're 20" big boys. It's great that Porsche uses a top-quality OEM supplier in BBS. There is probably relative weight savings due to wheel design details and the fact that they're one-piece forged wheels, rather than a multi-piece design. It certainly makes you think twice about dumping the high-quality, lightweight BBS OEM wheels for poor-quality, heavy aftermarket wheels just for the "bling."

The Yokohamas are relatively heavy, kind of like the Bridgestone RE11s. Their 28/31 lb front/rear weights compare to 24/30 lbs for Michelin Pilot Super Sports in the same sizes. But the Yokohamas' weight is probably a function of a stiffer sidewall.

I'll report back when track season begins.

 

Track update or feedback with the set up?