The official Tire and rim Thread!

[clintjohns]

ON MY COUPE - I'M RUNNING A 1/4 SPACER ON THE DRIVER SIDE AND REMOVED THAT BRACE ON THE PASS. SIDE. AND MY WHEELS TUCK INSIDE THE QUATERS

[jdmrh07]

EGGS-ZACTLY.

Don't really feel like peeling rubber off of my tiny little quarter windows. Besides, I nearly fell down a flight of stairs wearing bell bottoms, once.

Brian

hahahahaha awesome!

although if you run fender flares like the real motion cars you won't have that problem. But hey, Chip Foose and the gheddo pimpin look is in style now, so there ya go; throw away your side pipes, louvers, and flares and get into the "scene"

just teasin; I'm sure it'll look fine either way you go... Good Luck to ya

[Theeviltowncoupe]

Clint...LOVE the Sunbird. Well, I backed off doing the drivetrain so now its suspension time. Doing the axles and rear brakes tonight. Going after a set of 15inch S-10 wheels tonight as well. Have a friend with a set that are powdercoated black.

On the bell-bottom note...I had a girl in our neighborhood that used to wear Stickyfingers jeans. Great buns.

Any suggestions as to my GM 12 bolt I have from my old 68 Chevelle? I want to do the changeover but I don't really have any specs to do the swap.

Oh..and I got my V8 Vega home. All of the conversion stuff has been done. AND its a MANUAL TRANS CAR!!!!!!!! YAYYYYY!

[DeuelorDie]

I have been using this to compare different combos. http://www.wheelsmaster.com/rt_specs.jsp
One minor fault is you can make up any tire/ wheel size that may not exist in real life. But it is awesome to compare to factory sizes because it gives you many clearance specs.
Play with it, you'll be hooked like me.

[sportster96blk]

ok well i like big fat beefy looking rubber and had to modify rear drives side back of inner well with bfh and grinder a smug to fit in 295 50 r15 on 10s rear end and 235 50 15 0n 7s front end and of course install 5 lug s-10ish .car looks bad ass i was limited to options from one tire store that don't specially work with drag style cars that must also be road worthy and i do get a little rub now and then sure wish i could resizes my pics ill try to post in my garage -update had to add 1/8 inch spacers on rear with new 85 i-rock rear spings top of rear quarter panel will hit on hard corner but works nice allso i had to ease front lower fenders 1-1/2 inchs so front wheels wont hit they now fit good and car looks great ------- fatttttttttttttttttttt------ -----look in my garage for pics------ just added drag slicks to the mix 25.0 -9.0-15 toyo tires pics in garage

[rdubya]

Hey guys, this is my first post. I'm a little over whelmed with the forums so far. I've looked for a few days now for some answers to my questions and haven't found them. I apologize if they have been answered a million times already. I just bought an '80 Pontiac Sunbird coupe, my first h-body. I bought it because the body was super straight, and it seemed rare. The internet seems to make rare things common though. The interior is not perfect, but not horrible. From what I can tell, the car is all stock except the motor. The guy I bought it from said he got it on trade. The guy he got it from, told him the motor was a 327ci out of a '69 Camaro. I looked up the engine code and I believe it is actually a 305ci from a late '70's Camaro. I want to keep a stock looking appearance but the wheels and possibly a roll cage. I don't want it to be an all out drag car, but I love drag racing and would like to be in the 11's but streetable. The first upgrade I wanted to make were the wheels because the 13" ones on it now make it look horrible. I'm thinking of going with some Weld Prostars, but have no clue what size I will need. I was thinking 15"x8" in the rear, and 15"x4" in the front. If 15"x4" is not good for the street, then 15"x6". What backspacing will I need? I've tried to upload a pic of the car for you, but it says the file size is too large. I was able to add photos to my garage so you can see it there. I have a photo of the tag above the firewall in front of the driver seat, but the car has been painted so many times it's almost unreadable. I'd like to post it in case any of you can decipher it for me. Anything you guys can tell me would be greatly appreciated!

Ricky Warden
warden_jr@hotmail.com

[my79monza]

I am also awaiting any information possible on tire/wheel combination that I can fit under my 79 monza 2+2
I also think 15x8 rear and 15x4or6 front.
Please chime in guys as I am ready to build a 200R4 for this car and need tire sizes established in order to do the correct speedometer gears, since the 2oo does not have a tailhousing one needs to get things right the first time.
Thanks, Merle

[NixVegaGT]

If you read the thread from the start it seems like the consensus is with a 15x8 around 3.5-3.75" BS and 3.5" on the 15x6. I think 3.5 for the 8" wide rim is not enough though. I bought 8.5" rims with 3.75" backspace and they hang out to the edge of the wheel well. I had plenty of space behind the tire. There is no good way to add more backspace though you can add a spacer if it's too deep. Better to err on the side of too much BS than too little. The thinner front wheel is really way less critical.

You really can't loose just going with a 0 offset wheel and adding a half inch or so spacer if you need it. I urge you to go to the hardware store and get some parts to measure it yourself. It's pretty quick and easy, and you'll know for certain what you need. You can see pix of the jig I made earlier in this thread. I found offset is a lot easier to measure this way since it doesn't depend on the overall width of the rim. I've also found that BS measurements are all over the map for accuracy.

[clintjohns]

I will take pics of the sides of my car and post on here. I'm running the Iroc style wheels off a camaro, You can look and see what the back spacing is. Same wheel front and back just smaller tire up front

Used a 1/4 spacer on driver side rear and removed metal bracing from psngr side rear. no change to front other than 2" drop spindles. rear rubs only when on odd angles(ie going into parking lots etc....)

[mldeolde]

God bless IMSA fenders and quater panels- 275/40/17 front and 315/35/17 rear and could go bigger if needed.

[rdubya]

Thanks to all who responded. Now all I need is the money! lol

[NixVegaGT]

I've finally got some real numbers. Just to approach this from a different angle I decided to measure the body and axles to confirm my earlier measurements. I got my axles back from the machine shop for the flange mod (disc brake conversion using Malibu Maxx rear discs). OK so I finally got to measure the actual dimensions on my car. I've removed the wheel wheel gussets and welded in thicker sheet instead. SO I've got 43.25" from inside to inside rear wheel well. The axle measured 54.5" from wheel mounting surface to wheel mounting surface. The axle is a monza 7.5" housing with 28-spline axles.

That leaves me with at total of 5.625" from wheel mounting surface to the inside rear wheel well per side. The dimension from inside rear wheel well and outside lip of the wheel well is 11". To the rolled inside lip of the wheel well it's 10.5" (I rolled the inside lip with a sheetmetal hammer). SO I could get away with 10" section width if I got the offset just right.

Ok so let's work the numbers: With the wheel mounting surface 5.625" from the inside wheel well and 10.5" from the inside wheel well then the wheel mounting surface is .375" out from the centerline of the wheel well. I guess we'd call that 10mm (9.25mm) offset. SO if I could find a rim with a 10 offset then I could technically use a 10.25" section width with a little room to spare. As I mentioned earlier I was planning on using at the largest 245/45/17s. They have a section width of 9.8". I also checked 255/40/17s, they spec out at 10.4" section width. That goes right to the maximum. I'm thinking they would likely rub.

SO I'm sorta waffling on the size all together though for practicality reasons. I like to go on high speed track days and this car is being built for that purpose. It is convenient to be able to swap the tires front to rear to get better ware. With that in mind, I'm considering getting the same size rims for all 4 corners. I'm thinking that would be 225/45/17. Hmmmm. That's what I run on my SRT4 and they work really great for that platform but I will likely have more rear traction issues then that car. Hence my dilemma. Opinions?

BTW: The car is a '73 Vega GT. I'm not totally certain if these numbers translate to the same numbers on the Monza.

[72 SS PNL]

nice measurements , im actually planing on 16" and want to run a 255/50/16 rear , but could do a 245/50/16 , bigger the better and taller the better with in reason

sounds like your rear end is how im thinking of going too , since ive got a 7.5 now

[Astre-mutt]

The 245/40-17's are just barely narrower then the 9" wide wheel, which measure 10" on the outside on my car. Nic, you could go as big as 225's front & rear on 8" wheels. With a +10 offset on the front, they rub a little on the fender lip while braking & turning at the same time. My fenders have the stock fender lip, and could be trimmed for clearance. I haven't done that yet because I'm thinking of going to Fiberglass fenders.

[sayporsha]

I thought long & hard about what tire & wheel combo to use. I kept coming back to this: the Vega is like a miniature muscle car, so less is more. Race cars aside, I have seen a lot of Vegas that look ridiculous because guys tried to fit too much rubber under them. I landed on the following combo, and I'm very happy with the look:
American Racing Torq-Thrust II wheels: 15x7 front; 15x8 rear
BF Goodrich g-Force Sport tires: 205/55-15 front; 225/50-15 rear

The F/R tires have the exact same rolling diameter, and the wheels are the perfect widths for 205 & 225 rubber. I don't remember the wheel backspacing/offset, but they are the standard off-the-shelf sizes.

On the downside, I had to trim & roll the fenders and seriously modify the bump stops to limit suspension travel. I hope it works (I haven't driven it yet). My car has a Monza 10-bolt with S10 axles & front spindles. With another 1/4" backspacing I'd be golden, but it wouldn't look as good IMHO. We'll see how it drives - I'm getting really close to firing it up!

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