Ugly cut front fenders at Hallett 2013 clear the now wider 18x12" front wheels
Before the June NASA Hallet event last year we cut the front fenders (a replacement pair of OEM units - the stock front fenders are in my attic, along with the OEM trunk, front bumper cover and hood) to clear a new wider 18x12" front wheel, to make the wheel set-up more "square". We ran it this way for a couple of months and in August of 2013 we finally made over-flares for the front. We made these in our shop using a vacuum formed ABS plastic material just before NASA Nationals last season, and made them big enough to clear a 335mm tire. But with stock rear sheet metal we kept all four corners at 315/30/18 sizes.
"Ugly but Functional" front flares. We say that phrase a lot, I know...
They were not the prettiest things to look at, but they were functional and aerodynamically correct - you want to COVER the entire FRONT of a spinning tire, as that reduces drag, and you want to EVACUATE the rear portion of the tire by leaving it UNCOVERED on the back side. This helps pull air from the wheelwell and undercar areas, increasing brake cooling + engine cooling and reducing lift. This is a trick used in sedan car racing and was easy enough to emulate.
Testing the mega-splitter at ECR, August 2013, days before making the front flares
We added a MASSIVE front splitter to the car at the same time and integrated the front flares/wheel spats into it. I had wanted to flare the rear wheels at the same time, and switch to the 335/345 tire combo before Nationals, but we simply ran out of time (and Amy said NO!). After Nationals I wanted to attack that at our shop, as we've done steel flares as well as wide-body conversions in steel before, such as these cars below (but Amy said NO!).
Left: Boxed flared E30 we built. Right: Widening the OEM flares on this Pikes Peak raced 2005 Subaru STi at Vorshlag
Problem was we just got too buried in customer fabrication work, plus Amy absolutely REFUSED to let us "cut on her car". Yes, even after we made the ducted hood, massive rear wing and mega front splitter... Every other thing we had done to the car for 3 seasons could still be unbolted and replaced with the OEM sheetmetal, but cutting on the unibody was
verboten. Plus it would take away our technicians from paying service work, and when you are trying to save $$ to buy a building, every dollar counts. So we had the new front areo and big flares, but no additional tire... we raced it like this at Miller in September on skinny 315s, and TWS in September, and ECR in November, and MSR-Houston in January, and Cresson with the Club Trials in January. ...I simply had enough...
This is just some of the custom bodywork Shiloh has done for us...
When we realized late last year that the all new 2015 Mustang was going to likely be delayed until Fall 2014, and decided to keep the 2011 GT and race it in the 2014 season, I REALLY wanted to do the Big Tire Upgrade. RIGHT. THEN. AND. THERE. But we were too busy to tackle the rear flares, so I called Shiloh at Heritage Collision in Sherman, Texas, who had done such an amazing job on the custom flares for McCall's Z3 LS1 project (above). He worked the rear fender contours to clear that car's massive rear tires, then made front flare sections that he integrated into a carbon fiber hood, then made flared lower fender sections to blend it all in, and even fabricated some little splitter sections for the nose. That car looked AMAZING, so I took him the 2011 Mustang...
Dropping the car off at Heritage Collision in early February - 345s installed and spaced out 1/2"
Amy was NOT AWARE that I had done this, of course, as I knew she wouldn't approve. I figured it would better to
ask for forgiveness than permission in this case. So it was done during a very hectic time in the shop, hoping she wouldn't notice the red Mustang being gone for a couple of weeks during the ~5 week break between
Race Events we had from Jan 31st until March 8th.
Our shop guys (Ryan, Kyle and Olof) had blown apart the front splitter, front grill block-off plate, bumper cover, and rear wing uprights to have all of the aluminum bits blasted and powder coated (no more rattle can black paint or raw metal), as well as the Gloss "White" wheels (which were to be blasted and powder coated Anthracite grey with a semi-flat clear coat) then we loaded the car in the trailer and I dropped it off at Heritage. I discussed the timeline, budget and look we wanted with Shiloh and he said it would take a week or two. Well in 2 weeks we had our annual Open House and SCCA Tech Day, and I wanted this car to be there, so that was the absolute latest deadline we agreed upon.
Behind The Scenes : Making Custom Steel Rear Flares
Trust me - you don't want to see this kind of bodywork being done on your pretty car. Here's are some pictures that Shiloh was texting me while the rear flare work was ongoing, and my near mental breakdown that ensued. At first he showed me a method (these two below) that
might have worked with a narrower tire, if we didn't need the extra clearance for lateral movement of the axle (even with a Watts there is some movement + tire deflection).
Before and After - this was just the outer panel separated, moved out and massaged. "Looks great!"
Continued below