Hey guys it seems like this would be the place to ask this question. Because of some very bad balljoints my camber got set way off on both sides and ate away at my tires. since im young, pay for the gas, and go to college i didnt fix it right away and just rotated my tires, did burnouts, and drive on them every day . Now im looking for new rims and tires I dont want to use my AMC rally rims cuz they will do nothing for me since they are 14x6. Just looking to get alot more rubber on the rear. I was looking into some cragar ss wheels thinking 15x7 and 16x8. I was just wondering what you guys think the backspaceing should be. I would like not to have to do any modifications if i dont have to.
Stock BS is 4.5" front and rear. You can go as far as 5.5 on the rear with 255/60/15, but stay with stock on the front.
A really great look, is the magnum 500s with BFG TAs. I had them on my convertible and put them on my coupe for a while. 15x8s with 255/60/15 on the back look great, but stick with 15x7s on the front, I had 235/60s on the front and with 8" rims I had trouble lowering it as much as I wanted. No problem with the 7" rims, you can actually put 245/60s on it with the stock 6.5" or 7" wide rims. IMHO, 245/60s are too narrow for the rear and 225s are too narrow for the front, the 255 and 235/245 look good on it.
The Magnum 500s are $139 each at Summit, Center caps are $37.12 at Wheel Vintiques, Cap retainers were $12.39 each at WV and $7.38 at Summit I think. With a set of 235 and 255/60/15 BFG TA tires, the total came to $1,220, mounted and balanced at a local shop.
If you can get some huge spacers, you can run Cheap 17" mustang wheels on it. They'll fit the rear, but will need at least an 1" spacer in the front.
I've personally gone back and forth on the subject of big rims (17-20") vs. staying with 15". As far as I could find, you can't get raised white letter tires for anything bigger than a 15" rim. I like them on these cars, they just look right.
I thought I'd just step up to 17", but to get the same size wheel I have now (28" in rear) and fill up the wheelwell, you still end up with a 50 series tire and can't get RWL. It just doen't look right to me having that wide blackwall tire.
I think that if your going to go to anything bigger then a 15, you really need to step up to a 18 in front and 20 in rear to make it look right and have low profile tires. A lot of guys are going with 18s and 17s, but unless you slam it and limit where you drive, it still does't fill the wheelwells very good. My buddy Brent just got his car out of the shop and has 18s and 20s, and it looks just right at the stock ride height and no rubbing. He has a thread on Member Restoration Projects with his tire/rim specs and lots of pictures if your interested, look under EvilTwinATX.
Good luck, let us know what you end up with.
Chris
Austin, Tx