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I am curious about really large as in wide tires on the rear,
While my thing is off set deep dish old school rims 15's,
I am guessing there will be several people who have really wide tires under the body on modern larger than 15" dia wheels,
Anyway I would like to see some pictures of really wide rear tires on c3's and please include your tire and rim size and if you modded the trailing arms to make it happen...
Bats....you know my story....previous Bubba put P295 60R 15 tires x 8" wide rims on the back of my '68
then he re=arched both trailing arms.....but he re-arched them so much that I couldn't set the correct toe-in.....
I "un-arched" them 1"......now I can set the toe correctly and still have 1/2" clearance between the inner wall and the T/A.
I really believe he could have gotten a way with re-arching the trailing arms 1/2" (or less) and removing the E-brake brackets to keep from cutting the inner walls of the P295 tires.
The other thing was the car needed at least 3" of clearance between the tire and the wheel well lip to prevent bad rubbing when hitting big potholes or making sharp turns at high speed (body roll)
The tires also stick out 1 & 1/2" past the fenders.........3 & 3/4" height-clearance shown in this pic (too much gap)
2" gap...........
Last edited by doorgunner; 11-14-2014 at 01:45 AM.
I am restomodding a 1980 Vette and am planning on upgrading with big modern tires and wheels....really big.
I have bought a set of C6 Z06 wheels which are quite wide, even bigger than the standard C6 wheels.
They measure 18x9.5/275-40-18 up front and a whopping 19x12/325-35-19 at the rear.
This is what i am talking about:
Off course i face a lot of problems: The offset is way different and i want to keep them close to the fender lip, meaning stiffening the suspension, reworking the fenders and modifying the traling arms
My 69 has N50's on 15X10 Torque Thrust D's. The backspacing is 3.75 in. Since there is less than stock backspacing, the E-brake cable did not have to be moved and the stock trailing arms worked fine. The tires stick out about 2 inches. This is the look I wanted. I like it, you may not.
There's just a really long 18 inch wheel thread on the C3 forum. You really need to have a look at it. There is very limited tire selection for 15 inch wheels. I have 17 inchers on my 68 and 18 inchers on the 70. With 17 inch wheels there's more selection, and with 18 inch wheels, the selection just becomes enormous. For wide tires, you need offset trailing arms. I have VBP offset trailing arms on my 68 and Tom's Differential trailing arms on my 70. With offset trailing arms you can buy 18 inch wheels with 9.5 inch rim widths.
Like my Tom's arms and diff stiff in my 70. Google Toms Differentials.
I really do not want to offend people who like the look but I really have no interest in larger diameter wheels on my 69,
I have been spewing that for a while but it's painting a broad subject with a narrow brush the real thing I do not like is the way modern style total positive offset large diameter wheels look on the classic c3, they just never look "right" to me no matter how well the are done with spacers. so I can walk the line some look "good" just not "right" to me.
I have seen wheels like larger diameter Torque D's look really nice, and I have a set of mesh wheels like Parkers but mine are smaller, 15x10 and 15x8 so too small for what I am doing.
Take a look how good that reverse offset looks on parkers wheels, well at least it does to me,
I have several sets of wheels all too small for this project but I just like old school and want to stick with 15"
Big block 69 would love to see some pictures and Doorgunner why did they have to do all that to get 8" wheels on your car this is 10" on my 69 with no mods to anything.....but if you look close you can see the line the fender lip digs in them....
Bats......they didn't need to do anythong.......errrrr......anything to put 8" rims on the trailing arms.
It's the P295 tires that were going to rub the trailing are on the inboard side----that's why they re-arched the trailing arms to keep the tires from rubbing-----actually they would rub only when turning sharp corners because of tire flex.
I think the picture below is the Bubba'd trailing arm---actually if they had NOT bent/re-arched the arm so much they would have made a very good modification to the car......
Bats......they didn't need to do anythong.......errrrr......anything to put 8" rims on the trailing arms.
It's the P295 tires that were going to rub the trailing are on the inboard side----that's why they re-arched the trailing arms to keep the tires from rubbing-----actually they would rub only when turning sharp corners because of tire flex.
I think the picture below is the Bubba'd trailing arm---actually if they had NOT bent/re-arched the arm so much they would have made a very good modification to the car......
Ouch,
Okay, I see what they did,
I have seen some very well done home modded trailing arms I guess yours were not so much,
The tires in that pic of my car damnitman I can't recall what size they were but they were on a kit car I had and they were like new 20 plus yo tires great tread but dry cracked....the were way too much side wall for my taste but I had them and they were better than the bias plies that came on the car, seems the bias plies were even recaps lol.
I guess I am about 15-20 years too late in my post, what I was hoping was more people with flares ( ZL-1 ) showing their old school wheels and tires....there are still a few out there but it's not what it used to be.
Okay, I am getting a bit scared....I looked around net land and I can't find any 305 50 15 tires for sale, I see fellows on Cobra and GT40 sites all upset over it on posts a few years old but really?!?!?!?!?!
Are the 15" tires in 295-315 gone?!?!?!?!?
Geeez this sucks out loud....I hope I am just not looking in the right place...
There's just a really long 18 inch wheel thread on the C3 forum. You really need to have a look at it. There is very limited tire selection for 15 inch wheels. I have 17 inchers on my 68 and 18 inchers on the 70. With 17 inch wheels there's more selection, and with 18 inch wheels, the selection just becomes enormous. For wide tires, you need offset trailing arms. I have VBP offset trailing arms on my 68 and Tom's Differential trailing arms on my 70. With offset trailing arms you can buy 18 inch wheels with 9.5 inch rim widths.
Like my Tom's arms and diff stiff in my 70. Google Toms Differentials.
Arggg...hum..ack,
Okay, so wide 15" tires are extinct...
If you have to use modded trailing arms to fit 9.5 rims I am guessing you are using big old pos offset wheels, I just can't do that...no, I can't...I am old school I want my deep dish rims and big old fender flares so even in 18" is there anything that remotely looks old school with a deep dish?
Okay, I am getting a bit scared....I looked around net land and I can't find any 305 50 15 tires for sale, I see fellows on Cobra and GT40 sites all upset over it on posts a few years old but really?!?!?!?!?!
Are the 15" tires in 295-315 gone?!?!?!?!?
Geeez this sucks out loud....I hope I am just not looking in the right place...
If I can purchase BFG 295/50/15's up here, you shouldn't have a problem.
Summit has 15" Hoosier bias tires............P295-15R 60.....$205 each
They have radials also.....many different widths
(Do it like the old days.....get a rusty set of 15" steel rims.....cut 'em in half....add a 2" wide ring between the two halves....weld em up......bead blast em........paint em......slap on P305 tires....re-arch trailing arm......)
POST PICS!
Last edited by doorgunner; 11-16-2014 at 10:27 PM.
I can find 295's but no 305's that aren't a drag tire...
I looked on ebay and 15" wheels list like just under 400 items BUT 18" the highest yield...over 52K items....
I just called a vender on ebay selling 15x12 rims, I said where can I buy 305's for these rims...get ready....his reply....I dont know I do rims not tires.....
All this "No more wide 15" " makes me feel like Santa Clause isn't real either.
I called several top names in the world of tires and basically wide street 15" tires are mostly gone already, most say 16" are not far behind them. ( didn't look into drag and race tires because in general they cost more and do not last as long on the street using them in ways they were not meant to be used )
I am not thrilled with larger diameter wheels, seems most c3 guys who go to larger wheels insist on running the total positive offset which I just can't stand on these classic cars, they are stuffing huge rubber under the rear but seems many have to mod trailing arms,
I had a turbo wide body and I had huge 15" x ??? it filled the panels but I didn't mod the trailing arms at all....just reverse offset to fill the void in the wide body panel just like I want to do now with flares.
I can however buy an old school looking wheel like a torque d in 17 x 12 in any offset I desire, a 3.75 back spacing would then be deep dish for the rear. but I really do not want to go modern if I don't have to. it seems from all the tire people I spoke with today they agree 17" is "it" that it is going to be around a while and has a lot of tire choices....
The thing that sucks out loud for me a cheap bargain hunter is a 12x17 wheel made the offset I desire is more for one wheel than a set of old school 15" wheels...AND I have three sets of old school wheels.
I called the Summit tech line and was underwhelmed the tech who while admitting he never owned or worked on a vette started telling me that none of the tires I was talking about would fit my car, this was after telling him I was doing a mod/custom with flares.
He went on to tell me there is no tire wider than 295 50 in 15".
295's are out there to be found in 15", I would think with the right offset they would fit the rear of a c3 without flares but I could be way off on that thinking.
I learned many AC Cobra replicas run the 295 50 15 in the rear for that classic period correct look and they look pretty wide on those little cars.
I really want visuals.....see pictures of tires on c3's from the rear.... the 295's on your car are being squeezed to fit a 8" wheel, they like 9.5 and love 10"
they also have about 10.40" of tread width on the ground and are about 1" more sidewall than a 50 295 ( sound about right looking at yours? ) I would love a low picture of yours from the rear....
I would love some pictures from the rear of someone with 10" and 12" wide rear rims and what it took to have them....
Thanks for sharing that info with us Bats. This is bad news for me too because I wanted wide 16" wheels (if Wilwood calipers allow them). Now I might have to settle with 10x17 in the front and 12x17 in the rear, with flares. These come close: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ii-wheels.html.
11-13-2014, 08:18 PM
really wide tires on rear?
) lol
