Quote:
Originally Posted by jhein
Do you think a 265/40/18 would fit on the front?
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On a car that isn't significantly lowered and has a wheel offset the favors moving the wheel outboard slightly, I think it can be made to work.
a 265 would want to be on a 9 to 9.5" wheel. If your current wheel and tire setup is rub-free currently, you can get a lot of mileage out of this tool.
You can play with wheel and tires sizing to your heart's content and it will tell you what kind of space requirements are necessary for the changes. Then take those measurements to your car and see if you run into any issues.
https://www.wheel-size.com/calc/
That said I do know of some people that claim they are able to get a 265 on the front of some first gens. In general the 2nd gen has a bit more room front and rear for tires.
On 14" through 16" wheel sizes, in general the first points of contact in the front of these cars is the tie rod ends and the upper ball joint. As wheel hoop diameter increases, the tie rod ends and upper ball joint starts to slip inside the wheel hoop, giving you the ability to run wider wheels and tires.
As HWYSTR mentioned, drop spindles are a bit of a nono. Not that there is inherently anything wrong with a drop spindle. It has some advantages and disadvantages, but because it moves the wheel up relative to the suspension, you start running into issues with wide wheels and hitting the lower ball joint. These are more popular as drag car parts because you can get the front end low without reducing compression travel on the shock, which is advantageous for many reasons.
The best way I've found to check this stuff on the front end is to get the nose off the ground so that wheels are in full droop. Measure clearances lock to lock at full droop. Then, using a small jack, carefully jack up each lower control arm until the full weight of that corner is on the suspension, then measure lock to lock again and see what has changed.
Ideally you'd do the same thing with the spring out of the car and measure lock to lock at full compression, but that's typically not practical to do and most full compression situations come when the wheels are pointed mostly straight anyhow.