Tire Sizing Help for a '67 Formula S Barracuda

[BrendonAF]

Hey Fabo,

Making headway on my restoration project, but it's time to get the car off of the jack stands! I'm looking for wheels now, and could really use some pointers when it comes to sizing/dimensions/backspacing/etc.

The body work is already done and I did not have the fenders rolled on the bottom. This presents a concern, since the 67-69 Barracuda's fenders offer just about the least amount of clearance on that front of the fender's opening.

I went with an aftermarket Alterkation kit for the front suspension, and read up on some of the suggested dimensions. It really calls for a minimum of 3.25" backspacing, and the example tire posted by Reilly on his help page was a 14" or 16" x 5.75" (so the offset is 2.5").

I'd really like to use 16X7s with 4" backspacing for all 4 wheels, but am not quite sure if it will clear. The larger size rim would cut me down on tire sizing, but I would really like to put something close to this on the car.

Do you guys think these would work? The 4" backspacing should give me enough clearance over the suggested 3.25", but the overall width and the remaining 3" offset for the 16x7s makes me think I could run into some fender clearance issues. Would trimming it down to maybe 6.5" or 6" wheel width help on a stock/un-rolled fender?

Thanks!

 

[loganscuda]

I did 17x8 in front and 17x9 in rear looks great i have same setup

 

[BrendonAF]

Thanks for the confirmation on what wheel sizes you are running. I had a really good discussion with Bill Reilly (The RMS Alterkation guru himself), and had the dimensions nailed down enough to select these rims for the front:

They're the 17x7 Foose Legends (in black). They have 4" backspacing and a +1mm offset. What kind of tire size did you use on your car? I'm thinking or either 235/45/17 or 245/45/17 for the front, since the height dimension would be either 25.4 or 25.7 respectively. I've seen on several threads in this forum that 26.1" is about the max diameter you want to run up front for clearance issues/rubbing in the wheel well.

Thoughts?

-Brendon

 

[momoparman]

You need more backspace on the 17" or any wheel for that matter. Having the RMS K/wilwood brake system myself I learned the hard way. The track width has increased about 1/2 to 5/8" on each side and you will have issues with rubbing the fender especially the front edge if you don't compensate for that. 17" x 7 wheel should have at least 5" of BS to clear that properly. 5" would be better....problem is finding them in styles you like. Most of the hard offsets come on fwd wheels and thus most look like tuner wheels. Front tires are 225 x 45 x 17 on hers and 225 x 45 x 18 on mine.

I had to make custom hubs for my wifes cuda when I went with the 73 up a arms/wilwoods and had to cut the front edge of the wheel opening 1" on my fat blu fish which has the RMS k on it. I am running 17 x 7 with 4.5" bs on wifes (with custom hubs that are 3/4" shorter than stock wilwood hubs) and 18x8 with 5.25 bs on my fbf with stock wilwood hubs....they still stick out to far by 1/2" to 5/8" on my car btw but they don't rub the front edge of the fender.

Good luck with the wheels....it can be a bit frustrating.

The hub on the left is the custom hub btw.