My car is the 6.6l formula. It's lowered 1 1/2 inch. Tires are 9.5f/10.5 rear and doesn't rub a lick. The rear wheelwells took some convincing though. The 9.5s are fine on the street(for me). The aftermarket rims are working out well. I got a good deal and the chrome plating looks great. I would have been happy with firehawks though......

 

yeah but your z06 wheels are sitting so far outside that it shouldn't rub at least on the inside. my z06 wheels fitted the same and i couldn't stand it on hard launches the back wells would cut into the tire and if i lowered the car more then a pro-kit stance of 1.5" the cars fenders would rub under hard braking and turning....

wasn't worth it to me because i liked my car lower then it sat with those wider wheels which is why i sold them for a wheels i could fit better. don't get me wrong they look great but when they aren't inside the well there were just to many little things that bothered me to keep them.

i love how they look on that formula though, never seen one in person on a pontiac. looks good.



here is an example of what i'm talking about....in this picture the wheels are very wide but look fine.

 

here is a close up...this is using the proper tire height to keep stock dimensions and using the proper width for the rim. imagine if i ran a wider tire like so many of you want to do.....it definately wouldn't work. some of you may be alright with them sticking out further like that but you run into several problems.

1. you can't lower the car as much as you like.

2. the width of the wheels causes the car to track very badly. not that this isn't manageable but i grew tired of fighting with it all the time.

3. the wheels are so wide they throw everything up onto the paint. no matter how clean i washed my car and the roads were a short drive left the car dirty. in rainstorms i'd actually get water thrown up onto the side windows from the tires..........again not the biggest deal but i didn't like it.

4. performance is good don't get me wrong but again you have to watch your height of the body otherwise you'll definately rub the outer fenders on them.

there are other points but these effected me the most. not to say there isn't anything wrong with having wider tires but there are some points that should be considered and if any of the above bother you then you may want to look elsewhere. now that i have 8 and 10 for my setup i have the same performance on the street/strip that i had with the others without the tracking all over the road. my wheels fit better on the car so there are no issues no matter how low i go and everything else is that much better. not that this is anything necessary but it's another way to look at it.

 

What size tires did you run with those wheels? I can't remember. Mine are just barely tucked under and avoid and fender contact under extreem cornering. Then again I am not running any spacers or odd offsets.

 

fronts were 18x9.5 65+ with a 275/40/18 i believe and the rears were 18x10.5 56+ with a 295/35/18.

they sit pretty close to the way yours are which are still out from the stock area which is necessary so that you don't have to minitub or massage the inner well. i could have rolled the outer fenders and not had a problem but there were the other issues that led me to just get rid of them.

it also looks as if the track width of your front tire set is narrower then your rears.....in other words when you look down the front of your are the outer edges of your tires tracking close in line because the rears look further out.

 

I guess I'll be going with 8" and 9" Snypers. 255 front/275 rear...Does that sound good? I'm not sure what size Shifty is running though.

 

I am running 17x9's all around with 245 up front and 275 rear.

 

you can get away with any size you want you just need to take in other factors. i've never really understood why the desire is there for wider then necessary tires all around the car but it is a preference like anything. alot of different factors play into tire and rim selection and anything can just about be made to work. for me i would have ran an 8 or 8.5 front z06 rim had they made them in 18" but they didn't and i wanted a wider tire in back so when people said a 10.5 would work i went with it. for me it wasn't the right thing but not ever seeing it in person i had no idea.

unfortunately our cars aren't modified by as many people as others so you just can run out to your local show and expect to see what you want to do on the cars for better ideas. i would say try to find someone that you can see it in person to get a feel for it. pictures hide alot of things. either way though wether your running staggered sizes or general wider tires all around just make sure you take everything into account.

 

see ShiftyCapone 9's are very "doable" in the rear with no problems as well as they can easily be made to do in the front. running a 245 is really meant for an 8" wheel so the fact your actually stretching the tire makes clearance all that much easier. your wheels seem to fit nicely in that picture and looks the way you said with clearance of rubbing. however wide the rims and tires like what i have is a different story. you'll definately need to roll the outer fender lip to not have rubbing issues as well as you really should massage the inner fenders too to get them in as close as possible. with all of this done you might get a little more drop then 1.5 which would be equal to 100,000 worn out miles on the stock springs and not have rubbing issues but your tires will still be sticking out quite a bit more then stock.

for some this may work, others may not want that much rubber showing. either way it's all preference but it will take some work to get it right.

 

Yea you are absolutely right. I debated about tires sizes for a few weeks before I went with what I have. I kinda went blind on this and hoped that I woudn't have any problems with rubbing or tires sizes. There wans't many 3rd gens around with a drop and wheels so I couldn't really compair. And like you said, pictures lie. I got really lucky because everything tunred out perfect.

 

yeah it looks nice.

 

I know what you mean about not viewing stuff in person. My old 17's looked good.....for a few months. Then I came to my senses and bought something really good. My old rims was way *****. The ZO6 rims are an OEM designed classic. They are not ******* or bling,bling just a simple factory look. Something like that will never go out of style, IMO.

I bought wide rims for the same reason I created my 406c.i. MPFI monster.

 

what was on before the z06's?

 

they are 17x7.5 american racing rims.....dont ask,lol!!!

 

heh ok

 

good choice......

 

Time to puke.... I mean here is a close up,lol. I have no idea why picked those horrible rims. Guess the main thing is that I corrected the problem.

 

i wouldn't say horrible......definately a better choice is all.

 

 

those are 17 or 18" rims?

 

i'm going to guess 15/16 or 15/15...

 

Here's my 18's, Boyds in 18x8 front w/ 245/40/18 tires and 18x9.5 rear with 275/35/18 tires. I went with 8" wide and 245's in the front because of the stance I wanted to achieve. If you guys want a big contact patch in the front, you really have to pay attention to your ride height and spring rate. Too low, too soft, and too wide will cause issues. But yes 275's on a 9.5" wide wheel will fit in the front. I've read that Andris Skulte ran 10.5" wide wheels on the front successfully. All depends on the rest of the variables.

 

Ronal 17"s

 

16" on the front, 17" on the back. Just a bad angle.

 

17x8 in the fronts and 17x9.5 in the rears centerlines saharas