Staggered Wheel Questions
 

I am planning to upgrade my current non-stock chrome steel 14" wheels on my 1966 GTO, to a 15" wheel. I was thinking about either a 15X7 or 15X8 Vision 141 Legend. Are any of you guys running a staggered set of wheels? like 15x7 in the front then 15x8 in the rear? Pros or cons?

I guess for me it would be for appearance sake only, to have a wider rear tire.

The only real negative is that you won't be able to rotate your tires....

Here are a few things I considered when choosing my wheel/tire setup. I wound up going more pro-touring than classic but I like the look.

Going with a fatter tire in the back means less grip in the front. In the event that you're hard braking and turning, say swerving to avoid a crash, you are more likely to have the fronts slide and understeer. Since I like to chase Porsches on gravely LA mountain roads, I wanted to stay square-- same contact patch on all four corners.

The height/diameter of the tire was what I wanted to stagger. To my eye, the 66/67's rear wheel well is much bigger than the front and my little 225/70/r14's looked miniature with all that room. After measuring, I went with stock tire height in the front and about 1" taller in the back. In my case, I got 18" wheel in front and 19" in the back. Unless someone tells you, you probably wouldn't know. They just look right. In theory that gave me a little better highway speed which I didn't mind but in practice, I didn't notice a drivability difference.

Lastly, check out tiresize.com to see what sizes are available. My old drums could lock up my Cooper Cobra tires no problem and I almost rear-ended a few Honda Accords. Your brakes are only as good as your tires and modern tire compounds aren't available in classic sizes. I decided on the Nitto NT555 G2 tires, a bang-for-my-buck performance tire with decent sidewall. That helped narrow my sizing search to 275/40r18's in the front and 275/40r19's in the back. I could probably have modified the front wheel well a bit but I wound up getting annoyed and just got rid of them. It doesn't rain much in LA.

I really like the looks of the Year One 17" Rally 2 wheels. They are not too tall that you end up with rubber bands for tires. I went with 17X8s with 235/50 Eagle GT tires on all four corners. The 235 50 17s were as close to stock tire height as I could get.
The pictures show the difference in the old wheels and new. First pic is the old ones . Second pic is the new ones and that is my son behind the wheel. It was Christmas last year and the first time he has been over 100 miles per hour in a car. we topped 110 for a couple seconds but had to back off because we were approaching a curve.

good point...I think I'd rather be able to rotate the tires..

thanks for the alternate option to consider....I like the idea of square contact patch. Also, did you like the Cooper Cobra tires? I was thinking about possibly getting them. Do you recall if they were directional?

fyrffytr, ironically I was struggling between the cast Rally II and the Vision Legend. with the 17x8's you have, 4.5" BS, do they clear the wheelwells fine? I don't want to have to do any modifications to them. Also, would you go with a different tire size than the one you settled on?

I kept the tire size the same on all four corners to be able to rotate them. The fronts are OK but I did have to trim the inner lip of the rear wheel wells back even with the trim. I only had to trim the lip from about 10:00 to 2:00 O'clock position. I was looking for a 66 posi-traction rear end and that would have solved my clearance issue but I couldn't find one. The 66 is 1" narrower than the 67. I like the tire size I chose. Any taller or wider and there would have been more issues with them fitting.

Yeah, the square contact patch thing is what convinced me. Made sense.

The Cooper Cobras drove fine but the rubber compound was horrendous compared to modern tires. Even the run of the mill tires you'd put on an Accord are waaay better than they were 20 years ago. The "classic" tires clearly have not benefited from the same updates. I don't think they were directional. The new ones are but I can rotate them left-to-right which is good because my alignment wasn't great at first and I don't have posi yet-- so the right tire does a lot more burnouts than the left.

In LA, people drive fast and follow close, it's just how it is. I would be following at a large, safe distance and people would just merge into the gap in front of me. Back off, it'd happen again.

The Cooper Cobras needed 3x the distance to stop. That's huge, especially when you have no ABS. I really like the front end of my car and putting good tires on it was a must since I drive all the time.

Best part is that with extra braking confidence, I can drive more aggressively and have more fun.

Well I pulled the trigger on the Rally II's from Year One. So, since I have a '66, I wonder if I will be able to avoid trimming the wheel well in the rear,... Guess I'll be finding out soon!

Did you get the lug nuts as well? If not you may have a problem with stock Pontiac ones. I tried using a stock one and it took a bigger socket than the Year One nuts. The lug nut area is really tight and I chipped a little paint on the wheel.
If I remember correctly the stock lug nut take 13/16th lug wrench and the Year Ones take a 3/4.

Yep - new lug nuts coming as well..