Ok, so after much
and reading all of Mike Tylers (thanx Mike) and others posts regarding stuffing these 315's under the back of my Cuda, I finally have accomplished this task. I ended up going with a set of aftermarket wheels for a late model mustang (94-04) because they were much cheaper as a package than custom wheels. As you can see by the pics they fit quite nicely and do not rub unless you really bottom the suspension out hard, but normal driving seems to be fine along with hard cornering and acceleration. I am in the process of getting some different center caps and ditching the cobra ones
Here's the specs
Rear's - 17x10.5 with Sumitomo HTRZ 315/35 ZR17 - +27mm with 6.9" backspacing - no spacers
Front's - 17x9 with 245/45/17 - +24mm with 5.95" backspacing with a billet 1" wheel spacer/adapter from
http://www.wheeladapter.com/home.asp I dont normally like spacers, but I have run these for 4 years now on my other rims with no issues at all. They never shifted, loosened, nothing but rock solid.
With the 9" wheel I could probably fit a 255 up front, but it would be close to the frame. I have roughly 3/8" of room now between the tire and frame at full lock now and still have room to clear on the outside. I would like the look of a wider tire on the rim, but the 9" is just too much I think for anything bigger than 255's or so.
I also installed the 1.5" DR. Diff spring relocation kit which installed perfectly. This is a very nice kit and is very well made (Thanx DR. Diff !!!
) The hardest part of this was removing the spring perches and re-welding them. During this process I re-centered them and also moved them back a bit to increase the pinion angle a few degrees down since I lowered the car. I did end up using 1" blocks in the back and had to sand a slight angle on them to get the pinion angle just right at around 5deg down.
As you can see in the pics, I still ended up with more outside lip clearance on the drivers side then on the passengers even though I repeatedly tried to get it to sit centered in the car. Apparently this is where it is happiest so I went with it. It’s really only off by 1/8 to 1/4" toward the passenger side and it still doesn’t rub on anything anyhow, not to mention I figured a bit more clearance on the drivers side would allow for some flex room under hard acceleration.
As far as inside clearance I am about 3/8" to 1/2" away from the springs and about 1/2" to 3/4" (depending on which side) away from the inner fender wheel wells. I will try and post some pics of the underside when I get a moment, but everything really clears nicely.
One other thing to mention is that these wheels are (were) hub centric and I had to massage the rear hub opening about 1/32 for the rears to fit
. I took a slight amount off with a dremel tool being very careful to keep things even. this didn’t seem to affect anything and I don’t notice it while driving so I think we are all good.
My rear valance fit back on without much trouble. The shackles do lay on it just a touch but its not really rubbing it and definetly not denting it or anything like that so I think this is about as close as it gets without modification. This is the only re-pop panel on the car so maybe this is why it fits? Either way, all good for me – Whoo Hoo !!!
Anyhow, Thanx to everyone
who has posted in the past with good and bad experiences and successes and failures. It has been truly helpful for sure!!!!
And yes I have pics
