Right now I have the 4 lug wheels with disc brakes on my Intermeccanica and was wondering what my best option is for going to a wide 5 setup?
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VW suspension I assume?
IRS rear or swing-axle? Ball joint front end?
Cheapest is wheel adapters especially if you intend to run hub caps. $73 for 2 - Made in Tiawan. Not elegant (or particularly safest) as you have 9 lug bolts to keep tight plus it increases wheel base (often too much in back where the tires rub the outside of the wheel opening fiberglass). Assume rear is currently disc brakes?
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VW, IRS and ball joint. I have been doing some research and it sounds like all brake kits add to the front also and require a narrowed beam. I would like to try and get a setup that looks something like this.
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hbkmat posted:VW, IRS and ball joint. I have been doing some research and it sounds like all brake kits add to the front also and require a narrowed beam. I would like to try and get a setup that looks something like this.
nice looking COUPE.......I assume that your IM is NOT a coupe(didn't think they ever made coupe?)??
I would not worry much about the front as there is lots of room there. A narrowed beam is not needed unless you are running wide tires or a strange off set. Dropped spindles add 1/2 either side even on 4 lug. If you have 4 lug dropped spindles most kits require going to a non-dropped spindle with the wide 5s. The rear is where even an extra 1/2 could be a NoGo situation (especially if you have an IRS rear - which has longer axles).
That Emory coupe has had a lot of customization done to it - doesn't even look like a 356 any longer. To get that look it front you may have to even add wheel spacers to push tire out to near edge of rim - seems normally they sit back 3" or more.
I'm thinking my I'm has regular spindles already. It has 5.5" wide rim in the front and a custom 7" rim in the back. What are people doing for the rear to get clearance?
The custom rim is probably how IM got the 7" rim to fit. The center mounting area is cut and moved more to the outside and rewelded. How much room do you have between rear tire and outside edge of car. Mine are a mere pinky thickness with 5.5" rims on an IRS CMC (with stock drums). Post photos - front and rear.
There isn't much room in the rear. Difficult to take photos of but it seemed I had about 1 finger clearance in there.
HBKMAT,
Call the shop (714)894-1550 We can set you up with what you need for the wide 5 conversion.
Greg
IM does have the rim custom stretched to 7inch by going inward so that is the solution to take if you want it to fit. 
Please, please, please, don't use those cheesy adapters Greg/Wolfgang posted.
HBKMAT, are you the fellow Henry emailed me about? Where are you located?
I actually got a response from Henry yesterday about it and he said I would need standard spindles and the Empi wide 5 disc kits. I saw that Sierra Madre makes 16" wide 5 style rims with 5.5" width and 4.5" offset and those would look great. It seems as though doing this is going to be a lot more work than I thought and I could still run into clearance issues. Does Intermeccanica run the same suspension as a VW bug in the back and therefore have the same clearance as a typical Vintage Speedster?
No
Wolfgang said it increases wheel base. I'm sure he meant wheel track. The wheelbase is front to rear. Track is left to right.
Jeff
Yup meant Pontiac wide track. Yup avoid adapters - they are cheap and that's only favorable feature. "Does Intermeccanica run the same suspension as a VW bug in the back and therefore have the same clearance as a typical Vintage Speedster? " VS prefers to use a rear swing axle (and even convert IRS pans to swing axle) to narrow the rear track width. I don't think early IMs followed that design thought. My '71 IRS VW pan based CMC classic body is very tight on driver's side with Porsche 2L Fuchs. I like the alloy Vintage 190 - great wide five bang for the buck! Backspacing is 4".
http://vintagespyders.com/product/vintage-190/
