<VV> 17 inch wheels on Late Model

4carbcorvair 4carbcorvair at gmail.com
Fri Feb 10 10:56:58 EST 2006


John, I have attached a couple pictures. One is of a late model with 17's.
The next is mine with 16's. I have 16x7 with 4 inch backspace. Fronts rubbed
slightly turning the wheel on the front lower section of the fender. I had
to trim off about 1/4 inch. Tires are 205/55-16's. I 17 inch will fit with
the proper tire diameter. www.tirerack.com has tire demensions with the
tires they sell, a little research there should give you the info you need
on tires. 4 inch backspace should be fine on the front depending on the
tires size like I mentioned with mine. On the rear, you mentioned an 8 inch
wheel with 4.5 inch backspace. Need to remember that obviously an 8 inch
wheel is 1 inch wider than a 7 inch. With 4.5 backspace, you are only moving
the wheel half of the extra one inch compared with the front. The center of
the wheel is the same as the front, only difference is that you will have an
extra .5 inches on the outside and an extra .5 inches on the inside.I hope
I'm explaining this ok. Also check this out, some good info on his site.
http://autoxer.skiblack.com/tires.html

Good luck! Ron

<smnip> I am looking into installing 17 inch wheels on a late model
coupe. A while back someone posted some photos of a late with 17's on
here. I don't recall if they supplied wheel dimensions. So far I have
found the one inch offset is hard to come by. 17x7 have 4 inch
backspace which would supply probably the accurate offset for the
front. I want to put 17x8 on the rear but they only have 4.5 inch
backspace unless I special order 5 inch backspace(adding an extra $200
to the price). I have 15x8's on one now and know the plus's and
minus's of that. Just wondering a couple things....does anyone know
the max useful backspacing front and rear of a late model. And any
affect to the handling in mixing offsets, or would the wider wheel
probably compensate for this?



John Miller

Iowa <unsnip>


--
Ron Tinkham

66 Corsa Convertable, 140, 4sp.
Maine


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