[Mr Dave]

Anyone running this tire on the rear of their 70 (or similar) model? My car is in the body shop right now and I need to know if I should expect to cut the lip of the quarterpanel or not. I don't have a tire laying around right now, but if there are known fitment problems I can take one off the Corvette to measure/cut. Thanks!

[Junkyard Dog]

Seriously, though, I have seen 70 Chevelles running similar tire, so maybe it will fit. That's huge . . .

[Mr Dave]

Yeah, I have seen them on a Chevelle or two in the magazines but none in person. Someone out there has to have done it on the board.

[ten18]

I would think you'd be looking at a set of mini-tubs. . .

Keith
ten18

[Tom McQueen]

First off, lets define what 'fit' means. To me, a tire that fits tucks up inside the wheelwell and does not rub on anything through the full suspension travel and when turning. And it definitely does NOT stick out of the wheelwell so far that airshocks are required.

Using that definition, its unlikely either of these tires will fit, though with some major hammer work and the perfect wheel you might manage to squeeze the 315 in. I have a 70 GTO with 345/35X18's on the rear, and they fit. And it took a 2.5" minitub on each wheelwell to make them fit.

[b-man]

All you need is a tape measure, a straight edge, a sheet of paper and a pencil. If your 'vette has a 315 tire on it you're all set with everyting you need, it's easy to find out what fits with a little careful measuring. Go to the body shop, remove a rear tire and go at it.

If you find that the tire will fit (it will be close), you're good to go. If you can't quite find the 'perfect wheel' (you probably won't) it's not that expensive to narrow the rear end a small carefully-measured amount to put the rim and tire right where you want it.

[Mr Dave]

The wheels are going to be Simmons or Fikse, so I should be able to get whatever offset I need. I know how to fit them, I was just wondering if someone had any experience with these that would let me know what to expect.

There will be no airshocks or other hacked up means of making the tires fit. The car is being built to handle reasonably well and hacked up stuff would defeat that purpose.

[RF]

With perfect backspacing and a rearend that is square to the frame and body 315's are the biggest without any major modification, only rolling of the lips and maybe some massaging on the inner wells.

[gotpls]

Whatever you do, I would like to see some pics of a set of these installed.

[Tom McQueen]

Here is an old pic of the 345's on my 70.



The 2.5" added to the width of each wheelwell was more than was necessary to fit a 345. As long as we were going thru the trouble of doing the minitub, I decided to make as much room for tire width as possible while still leaving adequate room for 3.5" exhaust pipe, large case mufflers, 3" tailpipes and a 3.5" driveshaft.

[Mr Dave]

Dang Tom, looks like you and I have similar tastes. Your 70 looks nice. I considered going back with black on mine, but always wanted red. What are you running for a transmission in that beast?

[Tom McQueen]

David....trans is a TKO-600. The color is temporary. The last color you want in the desert is black. Originally dysentary green (vedoro?), it was painted black at some point before I bought it for this project. Im going to fix all that when I have the frame off done. Color will definitely be silver. Looking at different shades from BMW and Mercedes. Nicest silvers Ive seen so far. Thanks for the compliments.

[Mr Dave]

Did you end up buying an aftermarket crossmember or cutting the tunnel? I'm looking at the TKO as well.

[Tom McQueen]

I wanted to keep the driveline geometry as correct as possible, so we cut the tunnel. Not a big deal. The console pretty much covers all the tunnel mod.

[GS470]

David - I really wanted to run som 315/35R17 on the back of my '72 LeMans, too. And, like you, I also have a car with some "test wheels" sitting around that I used for fitting.

The 17x11s with 315s barely fit inside my wheel wells and with some massaging of the lip around the wheel opening and the inner wheel well, they probably would have fit, but it would have been extremely close. I went with Billet Specialties wheels and you pick your backspacing when you order them. This is good and bad. The good: You get exactly what you want. The bad: If you screw up on your backspacing when you order, you're screwed. This meant if I took a chance and tried to fit the wheels/tires in there and they didn't fit perfectly, I still owned the wheels. I wasn't willing to take the chance, so I wimped out and went with 9.5" rims in the back with 285/40s.

Good luck with your decision. Here's a couple pics of how my turned out.

[Tom McQueen]

GS470 makes a very good point about full custom wheels. I had mine made by Budnik. Full custom means you specify everything. Width, backspace, mounting pad height (which determines caliper clearance), etc. Screw up a measurement and the wheel becomes a very expensive coffee table (you have to buy the glass top too). If youre gonna drop big $$$ on full custom wheels, buy some insurance. Get a good wheel simulator. I have one and it made the process of figuring out what all the dimensions needed to be easy. Ive even been known to lend it out now and then.

[Mr Dave]

Well, I took the GS to the body shop today and did a little test fitting with my Nitto 315's. It was pretty tight in a couple of spaces, but the tire physically fit (although no suspension movement could be tolerated). We are going to roll a small part of the inside well back which would yield about 1/2". We're going to take another 1/2"-3/4" off of the lip on the outside which should give a decent amount of clearance. I'm considering going with a 295 instead.

GS your LeMans looks good with the 285's.

Tom, I was thinking of buying one of the wheel simulators or trying to find a shop locally that had one on the way back from Marianna today. Where did you buy yours?

[Tom McQueen]

Got it off the internet from Wheel Works. The simulator is called the 'Mount Mate'. 1-866-4WWORKS. I am assuming they are still in business.

[Northern Goat]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by David Watford:
Did you end up buying an aftermarket crossmember or cutting the tunnel? I'm looking at the TKO as well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Contact Kiesler Transmissions (http://www.keislerauto.com/). They provide a great all inclusive conversion kit for a swap to a TKO 600. We just got one to convert a 70 GTO auto to a 5 speed. All linkages, pedals, H/W included. Even included an new custom made tunnel. Great simple bolt in.

[Mr Dave]

I have been looking at the Keisler kit and it looks pretty complete. Some of the guys on CF seem to be havng a problem getting them to ship though. How was your experience?