17" Magnum 500's
*grumbles*
well, this isn't looking great...
i was looking at something in the 235~245 range, how does that jive with the front end things and stuffs?
(i defer to your superior experience and granular knowledge in these such matters)
The 17x8 YO magnums have a 4.5” backspace.
245/45/17’s need more like 5” of backspace (minimum!) on a 17x8 to have any real clearance to the fenders in the front.
By comparison, a set of 245/45/17’s on a 17x8 with a 4.5” backspace will stick out over a 1/2” further than the 275/35/18’s I run on 18x9’s on my Duster. And my fenders have the lips rolled flat and the whole thing is pushed out with the fender roller. My car is lowered and with the push I have a bit of clearance, but to run those YO 17x8’s you’d have to put the wheel opening well above the top of the tire to keep from rubbing.
And while that’s possible, it looks like ****, especially with the 17” wheel and shorter sidewall. The 235 saves you a few mm’s but even those are still further to the fenders than my 275’s are. Only a 225 gets close to the same spot as my 275’s, but at that point the tire will look stretched on the rim, which also looks like crap on these cars.
Now, some of that is my opinion, but in my opinion with a 17” or larger wheel you need the top of the wheel opening pretty close to level with the top of the tire. And you need a bit of shoulder on the tire, so, you want the tires measuring wheel to be about the same as the wheel width you’re gonna run. If you run the max recommended width wheel (like a 225 on a 17x8) the tire sidewall gets rounded with the stretch and looks even shorter, which makes it harder to make it look good on an old muscle car.