jscott83

Hi All,

I'm writing to share a little project I recently completed. Some may find it interesting.

My Goal: I have a 2005 CL65 AMG. I wanted more tire on the car, a more aggressive stance, to convert the reverse rake that's the industry standard on most modern OEM tire combinations to positive rake, to be able to lower the car and have absolutely no fitment issues, no sacrifice in handling or ride quality, keep the car looking like an adult owns it and, most of all, retain the OEM AMG 5 twin-spoke Hyper Black wheels.

I determined Michelin Pilot Super Sport tire size to accomplish the perfect, no hassle fitment with the rake I wanted would be 255-40-19 fronts and 295-35-19 rears. The OEM 8.5" front wheels are a fine fit for the front with the new rubber. However the rear would require going from a 9.5" to a 10.0" wheel with the extra .5" of width being split between positive and negative offset.

As all us W215 CL65 AMG owners know the OEM AMG rear wheels have a unique offset. Long story short, after nearly 6 months of diligent attempts with the four major wheel barrel manufacturers I couldn't get anyone (at any cost) to manufacture a 10" wide barrel to fit my OEM AMG centers, nor could I even get them to sell me a blank forging. So, I began the project of manufacturing my own rear barrels from very expensive lengths of 6061 T-6 22" diameter solid bar.

Step one of the project was to acquire a sample wheel to copy draft the barrel dimensions. To have one to work with at my leisure I ordered and purchased a used (supposed 2006 CL65) AMG wheel on line. Much to my surprise the wheel I purchased was misrepresented on the ad and, in fact, was a 10" wide AMG wheel. More amazing is that the mounting flange of the wheel was offset .25" positive and .25" negative from the actual W215 CL65 AMG OEM 9.5" wheel! Needless to say I was elated to find out an actual AMG 10" wide wheel barrel with the exact needed offset was manufactured as an OEM component! Yay, right.....

Not so fast....

As I began assembling my OEM AMG centers into my newly discovered 10" OEM AMG Chromodora barrels I discovered the bolt pattern of the center to barrel mounting holes are different. As most will probably agree, at first glance the pattern of the (5 ea.) 4 bolt mounting array looks symmetrical. It's not. In their terrific engineering and manufacturing wisdom (I really do have great respect for them) AMG shifted the TPS hole over 1 hole and shifted the remaining mounting holes1 mm from symmetrical. Obviously they did this to eliminate to possibility of the wrong center getting placed in the wrong barrel during manufacturing, yet not affect the visual aspect to the consume for either; Brilliant!

However for my project this created quite an issue as not only did the pattern not mate, but the 1 mm shift meant the mounting pattern was off by less than half a hole. Because of the design of the TPS hole in the raw forging the TPS hole can't be moved in the 10" barrel. This eliminated the ability to simply rotate the center and drill and tap the proper pattern in the barrel.

Ultimately I ended up manufacturing tooling and components that allowed me to relocate the hole pattern in the 10" OEM AMG barrel to properly accept the OEM W215 CL65 AMG rear wheel center.

Once complete I chromed the barrels, powder coated the inner side satin black and powder coated the wheel centers Hyper Black.

The end result is a perfect, spacer-free, rub-free fitment of the tire combination I wanted and (for my personal taste) a very classy, aggressive look....and an improved ride!

Dr Matt

Wow, way to make it happen.

i'll take the next set you make!

PrecisionEngine

Nice work! I'll second that !

RaceHorse

Wow, very nice! Its too bad getting new barrels couldn't have been easier. I was not willing to cough up the coin or put in the same effort you did, but as you can see I was after the same thing. I do run spacers and haven't had any problems so far. Now get an LSD to put those beefy tires to work, the combo is a day and night difference over stock.

https://mbworld.org/forums/cl55-amg-...-lsd-305s.html

Gooseyman

well done and a Great job i have to say. i think the wheels you bought are the staggered sl65 sport package extra wide wheel which come 10j in the rear.

PrecisionEngine

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Did all SL65s come with a 10" wide rear wheel? I'm looking to purchase a second set of wheels to do either of these modifications mentioned here.

Thanks,

-Pete

jscott83

Hi all,

Thanks for the kind words, greatly appreciated! Making the wheel set (especially the tooling) was quite a lot of work but the result is just what I was looking for, subtle with the "something's different but I can't quite put my finger on it" look.

FYI no, they're not the SL65 barrels. Those have a different relative mounting flange location than the W215 CL 65's.

I have the goods to manufacture two more sets and may consider doing so and selling them.

Thanks again for the compliments!

Best to all.

RaceHorse

Could you make 10.5", moving the double 5 spoke to the proper location to avoid the spacer? Are they lighter,stronger than stock?

Gooseyman

im not sure tbh, the thing is that this is what i read and some people claim they came in the sport package sl65 here is one in ebay and i once came across an ad in this forum couple of years back links are below but ofc they come in different offset

ebay Link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/19-Mercedes-...EAAOSw0JpV7Jiz

Mbworld Link:

https://mbworld.org/forums/sl55-amg-...ginal-amg.html
(check his second reply in the post)

l3iGD

How much for a set?
What's the widest tire size we can put on our CL65's w/ stock wheels?