Wheel Offset And Backspacing Confusion
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Wheel Offset And Backspacing Confusion
I am building a 1986 Firebird. You can see it on my IG @1crazyoldbiker.
I bought Nitto NT555 G2 Summer UHP Radial 315/35R17 for the rear and 255/45ZR17 for the front.
What rim/wheel offset, backspacing dimensions do you recommend for these with 17x11 and 17x9.5?
Where can I find wheels for a decent price?
I bought Nitto NT555 G2 Summer UHP Radial 315/35R17 for the rear and 255/45ZR17 for the front.
What rim/wheel offset, backspacing dimensions do you recommend for these with 17x11 and 17x9.5?
Where can I find wheels for a decent price?
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Re: Wheel Offset And Backspacing Confusion
Have you read the wheel fitment sticky? Lots of good info on wheel offset, etc there. For 17X9.5" wheels a lot of folks on here seem to gravitate to the C4 and C5 Corvette wheels with pretty thick spacers I don't know what to tell you about the 17X11 size because that seems awfully wide to find in a stock, non-custom wheel. 315mm wide tires on a 17X11 wheels seem awfully wide to fit on these cars without either raising the back end of the car up or doing some serious fabrication work.
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From: Macon, GA
Car: 1992 Camaro RS
Engine: Vortec headed 355, xe262
Transmission: T56
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Re: Wheel Offset And Backspacing Confusion
If its just a matter of finding anything that's 17x11...
I'd say go to a certain website that sells lots of original equipment wheels and type ZR1 and you'll find a matched set of 17x9.5 and 17x11 wheels for around $800. Theyre probably not as high quality as the originals, so if you can find a used OEM set you're better off. All of the OEM sets will have the JWL logo on them (Japanese Wheel, Light alloy certification, this is a very good thing for a wheel to have, means it's been tested and certified safe for road use) and not all of the replicas do. But I can speak from experience that the ZR1s look fantastic on these cars. The 11's will fit, you'll need around 6.15 or less backspacing with any adapters and spacers attached to the wheels. A larger backspacing number will tuck the wheels better, but youre going to have more rubbing, a lower number will clear your bump stop and inner fenders a lot better but stick out more. An 11" wide tire means you'll be threading the needle with those two things, but in my case I had 6.15" backspacing for 17x11 wheels and they fit pretty well. Thats a 7.397" backspacing ZR1 17x11 wheel replica, with a 1.25 inch spaer. So you do the math and 6.147" backspacing is what you end up with. Still required hammering on the inner fenders a good bit.
I'd say go to a certain website that sells lots of original equipment wheels and type ZR1 and you'll find a matched set of 17x9.5 and 17x11 wheels for around $800. Theyre probably not as high quality as the originals, so if you can find a used OEM set you're better off. All of the OEM sets will have the JWL logo on them (Japanese Wheel, Light alloy certification, this is a very good thing for a wheel to have, means it's been tested and certified safe for road use) and not all of the replicas do. But I can speak from experience that the ZR1s look fantastic on these cars. The 11's will fit, you'll need around 6.15 or less backspacing with any adapters and spacers attached to the wheels. A larger backspacing number will tuck the wheels better, but youre going to have more rubbing, a lower number will clear your bump stop and inner fenders a lot better but stick out more. An 11" wide tire means you'll be threading the needle with those two things, but in my case I had 6.15" backspacing for 17x11 wheels and they fit pretty well. Thats a 7.397" backspacing ZR1 17x11 wheel replica, with a 1.25 inch spaer. So you do the math and 6.147" backspacing is what you end up with. Still required hammering on the inner fenders a good bit.
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