Chicago535

Hoping to hear from the jazzer and a few other experts. Trust me I've done tons and tons of research and tried a few things myself so please believe me when I tell you I've looked and read tons of other people's threads and things like that. I still cant find an answer suitable for my needs.

I'm running a 2003 GT with H&R ss springs and (because I got them for a great price) a set of 18 inch polished bullitts from an S197. These were ordered from the Ford Dealer and I cant tell if they are 18x9 or 18x9.5 in the front? and the rears were professionally widened and i thought they were 18x10.5 but when I took a measuring tape to it, it looked like 11! It look like only an inch was added on. Did these come in 18x9.5 from the dealer? Sorry I know I'm asking for a lot and giving little info but this has been going on for too long!

The rears were rubbing really bad so I removed those pieces from the back I forget what they are they looked like miniature shocks (was told they were "useless") and added 1 inch hub centric adapters to the rears and they look and perform great but the front rub really bad when i turn and it almost makes my car like turning a boat. I had great performance with my stock 17s but love these 18s and how they have a chrome like finish from the factory so I definitely want to keep these. What do you guys think I should do? I'm skeptical to add adapters or spacers to the front because they look even the way they are and fear the front would stick out too far with some sort of spacer. Should I put a 1 1/2" spacer in the rear and the 1" or even a .5" in the front? With a half inch wouldn't I need to get a spacer plate and longer studs?

Sorry for the book of problems but hopefully somebody can help!!!!

I'm basically looking for suggestions on what to do about spacing in the front and rear as well as which tires I should be putting in the front and back.

Jazzer The Cat

OK, several issues in play here... but, first off, welcome to MF's

(down to bidness) Thanks for the kind words, it is always nice to hear that someone follows my stuff *awe*. There is about a 5/8" difference in off-set of wheels between the SN95 New Edge (your car) and the S197 (the car in which your wheels were designed to fit) Since the hubs/axles about 5/8" farther outward than your car, the wheels off-set must differ this amount, to compensate and keep the wheel/tire in the middle of the fender space. This answers why you need a spacer to run them on your car and avoid rubbing. The little miniature shock is called often called the "quad-shock", but is not completely fair for people to call it useless. It is to address issues of wheel hop on the 4-link Mustangs, but can be made obsolete, with the installation of a set of quality rear LCA's (not going to get into that here, as it is outside your question)


Secondly, the front wheels are very likely to be 8.5" and definitely not 9" or 9.5" up front. Sounds like you may be measuring to the OUTSIDE of the wheels, where the measurements are taken from the inside (see "rim width" on the off-set link above) I would expect your front tires to possibly rub on full-lock (wheels completely turned to one side). Personally, I am not a fan of running a 1" spacer, but many have a different opinion. I am just not a fan of having a "hidden" set of lug-nuts, but if you check them every once in a while, they will be fine. They also allow the OEM lug-bolts to protrude beyond the thickness of the spacer and sometimes hit the wheels. Sounds like this is not an issue for you, so that is good.

From the images, I cannot believe that to be an 11" wheel, so would ask what are the points from which you are measuring? Can you also tell me the 3 size numbers on both the front and rear tires?

Jazzer

Chicago535

Thank you very much for the official welcome. I've been lurking these forums for a long time lol

Ok here's where some head shaking may occur. The reason the wheels in the rear don't look wide is because I got all 4 tires for free and you can actually see in the pic (view from back) that the sidewalls are stretched out and the tread touching the ground actually isn't much. The tires are totally wrong, probably for the front and the rear. The front is 255/45zr18 and the rear is 255/55/r18

So I'm trying to run the same width tire on a wheel an inch wider (sorry) I've been meaning to get the correct tires but when I ran into issues with the fitment I figured I'd take a step back and reevaluate the situation

This is where I'm taking measurement from


Here is the front


Here is the weld on the rear (Widening)


Here is the rear measurement

Jazzer The Cat

OK... the angle of the tape measure is difficult to determine, but the actual wheel width is about 3/8"~1/2" less on each side. That is a widening spacer installed into the rear wheels and looks exactly like the one on both sets of my wheels:

Fronts from 9" to 10" wide


I am positive that Ford did not install anything over 8.5" wide Bullitts on any S197's, so my guess is that you have a 9.5" wheels and makes more sense. Here is an 11" wheel running 315's on my car:



I realize you have a 255 out back, but the fitment appears to be a 9.5" wheel to me. The angle of your tape measure just makes it too difficult to be sure. If you remove the wheels, you should see the off-set and width stamped on the back-side of the spokes. You may be able to see it with a mirror or if you can get your nugget under there to see. You can also pull the wheels and measure the back-space, as described in the off-set link I have above.

Without knowing the off-set/back-space, I cannot give you specific information on fitment and tires that will run without rubbing

Jazzer

jeffo

Hi,

Just from a quick look at your pictures:
*Looks to be 10.5 from flange to flange, thus you have a 9.5 inch wheel (bead to bead)
*If the wheel was orginally a 8.5 inch wheel they have increased your offset about 25.4mm.
*For threads, you need about 1/2 inch of thread engagement. 1/2" spacer will not enable this. They make 3/8" hubcentric ones with ET lugnuts to achieve 11 turns.

With over 1 inch in widening you are going to need a spacer/adapter, probably 1.25" to 1.5".

Chicago535

Old thread but please help me revive it as it's getting to be crunch time so to speak. I've been running down some old tires in the front in an old set of 17s. I wanted to run a taller tire in the back but I believe my car thinks I'm in a skid because of the difference in height. Will my handheld sct xcal3 fix this or will I have to run even heights to correct the abs issue?

I will work on finding the exact width of my rims but believe they would be 18x9.5 and 18x10.5. Was thinking 265/35 up front and 315/30 in the rear (unless I can run taller of course). Move my rear 1 inch adapters up front and go 1.25-1.5 in the rear. Whatcha guys think assuming the measurements are spot on?

Edit: was even thinking of trading my wider fronts for a set of the same but 8.5 because I was quoted 300-400 bucks to narrow my fronts