<VV> Anther wheel question..... sorry.

[Bruce Schug]

PLEASE DISREGARD THIS MESSAGE. I WANTED TO SAVE IT AND CHECK THE 
CLEARANCE ON MY FRONTS TOMORROW, THEN FINISH IT. I MISTAKENLY SENT IT 
INSTEAD. I'LL GET BACK TO YOU TOMORROW.

Bruce


On Sep 19, 2005, at 5:55 PM, 4carbcorvair wrote:

> How would 16x7 wheel with 4 inch backspacing be on a LM? 205-55/16 
> tire the
> biggest I could fit? trying to stay close to the stock tire diameter.

I just don't think of a 205/55-16 as being a particularly wide tire. I 
guess that's because I've run sixteens for, I guess, eighteen years 
now. I thought guys were running 205/55's on earlies?

As you probably know, I run IROC Camaro wheels which are 16 x 8's. Now 
I know what the backspace is for these, so maybe we can figure if your 
proposed 16 x 7's with 4" backspace will fit.

The wheels I run on the rear are the FRONT Camaro wheels which have 
about 4 1/2" backspace. I think the TOTAL width of the wheel is about 
9", so there's about another 4 1/2" going to the outside of the wheel; 
follow? This wheel has zero offset, se it "proves" our theory that 
there's 4 1/2" going toward the outside of the wheel - the wheel is 
symmetrical from the mounting surface; it has 4 1/2" on either side.

Your proposed 7" wheel with 4" backspace will be about 8" wide TOTAL. 
So, again, you'll have about zero OFFSET and have about 4" of backspace 
and 4" going to the outside of the wheel. So, you'll have about 1/2" 
more space on the front and the back of the wheel than I do. You should 
have no problems here, since I easily run 225/50's, with your narrower 
205/55's. This is no surprise, everybody knows the rears have lots of 
room. Now, let's look up front where problems can occur.

The wheels I run on the front are the REAR Camaro wheels which have 
about 5 1/4" backspace. These wheels are marked as having 20mm offset, 
which is .7874" - a little more than 3/4". Now, let's see... if these 
wheels are about 9" total width and they have 5 1/4" backspace, that 
means they would have about (notice I keep saying "about") 3 3/4" going 
toward the front. That figures about right as the difference between 5 
1/4 and 3 3/4 is 3/4! So, indeed we're pretty close here. Now, let's 
apply this to your proposed 16 x 7 wheels with 4" backspace and see how 
they'll fit the car, compared to my wheels.

Here, your proposed 4" backspace is a lot different than my 5 1/4" 
backspace. When we subtract a half an inch, to make up for the 
difference between 8" wheels and 7", that reduces my backspace to 4 
3/4. But you don't have 4 3/4, you have 4 - SO THE INSIDE OF YOUR WHEEL 
WILL BE 3/4" INBOARD OF MINE.( I think this is right.) Will it fit? I'm 
not sure. The place most people usually have trouble is on the OUTSIDE. 
The place where everyone has to trim is at the top inside of the 
wheelwell. But you should be okay there. If your wheel is 3/4"inboard 
of mine and is 1" narrower, that means the OUTSIDE of the wheel will be 
inboard 1 3/4" of mine, right?

But what about the inside of the wheel/tire? You're inboard of mine 
quite a bit. My GUESS is that you may rub on the inside; probably not 
the wheel, but the tire, on sharp turns.





Bruce W. Schug
bwschug at charter.net
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