Backspacing question for 17x7s and 18x8s

Howdy! I'm deciding which size wheel to go with... What is the general rule of thumb on a '96 Roadmaster wagon? Would it be 4" of backspacing on a 7" wide wheel and 5" of backspacing on an 8" wide wheel?

Thanks! Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm working on tire sizes with tiresize.com to keep the tires at about the same diameter as the stock 225/75R15s. With the 17x7, I was thinking of a 235/60R17...

Thanks!

I have the 17X7 wheels on my RMW with 235-60-17 tires and they fit well with lots of room to get them on and off.  I generally ignore backspace and go by offset and these ones I have are zero offset compared to +8mm for factory wheels.  Hard to find any + offset wheels though and these are perfectly fine with no apparent handling change.  A 7" wheel at zero offset would be 3.5 backspace

IIRC.

Oooh those rally wheels look great! I've considered going that route as I've had them on a '70 El Camino an a '65 Nova in the past... Where did you get the wheels and Buick center caps from?

Thanks!

They are Vision brand and appear to be very, very nice and at a reasonable cost. They come in gunmetal link mine, chrome, all black. They were the one of the very choices that have the same load capacity as stock wheels and DW and I both really liked the look of them.

The center caps are they optional Vision caps the come blank in the center. I stuck on ebay purchased Buick logos with black silicone. The caps are chromed steel so they actually stay on a lot better than many of the plastic center caps do.

I got the wheels and tires at Discount tire who matched price with two different online sources so they came out to be very reasonable. Stock steel lug nuts are a really close fit in nut bore so I had to get taller ones to be able to get my impact socket on it well.

Thanks for the input! I've seen the Vision reproduction rally wheels online but I had little knowledge about the company or it's quality. I wanted to go with a little bit of a wider tire but also get a contemporary size wheel that has support from the tire industry... 15" wheels aren't as popular as they had been in the past. I'm glad to hear that the wheel and tire size combo you have presents no fitment or handling issues... a concern I had and something I didn't want to learn the hard way after dropping $1500-$2000...

Those are pretty much the same requirements I had when going looking for tires and wheels.  15" wheels have been hard to get good tires for in the past and it seems to be getting worse, especially if  you want a semi performance tire.

ckamin wrote:

Howdy! I'm deciding which size wheel to go with... What is the general rule of thumb on a '96 Roadmaster wagon? Would it be 4" of backspacing on a 7" wide wheel and 5" of backspacing on an 8" wide wheel?

Thanks! Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm working on tire sizes with tiresize.com to keep the tires at about the same diameter as the stock 225/75R15s. With the 17x7, I was thinking of a 235/60R17...

Thanks!

If you put 1/4 inch spacers behind the wheels, and longer studs so the nuts will engage enough, you will have the same offset as the stock wheels

Fred Kiehl wrote:

ckamin wrote:

Howdy! I'm deciding which size wheel to go with... What is the general rule of thumb on a '96 Roadmaster wagon? Would it be 4" of backspacing on a 7" wide wheel and 5" of backspacing on an 8" wide wheel?

Thanks! Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm working on tire sizes with tiresize.com to keep the tires at about the same diameter as the stock 225/75R15s. With the 17x7, I was thinking of a 235/60R17...

Thanks!

If you put 1/4 inch spacers behind the wheels, and longer studs so the nuts will engage enough, you will have the same offset as the stock wheels

How wide and what offset wheel are referring to with the spacer?

booster wrote:

Fred Kiehl wrote:

ckamin wrote:

Howdy! I'm deciding which size wheel to go with... What is the general rule of thumb on a '96 Roadmaster wagon? Would it be 4" of backspacing on a 7" wide wheel and 5" of backspacing on an 8" wide wheel?

Thanks! Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm working on tire sizes with tiresize.com to keep the tires at about the same diameter as the stock 225/75R15s. With the 17x7, I was thinking of a 235/60R17...

Thanks!

If you put 1/4 inch spacers behind the wheels, and longer studs so the nuts will engage enough, you will have the same offset as the stock wheels

How wide and what offset wheel are referring to with the spacer?

The ones you described.

Fred Kiehl wrote:

booster wrote:

Fred Kiehl wrote:

ckamin wrote:

Howdy! I'm deciding which size wheel to go with... What is the general rule of thumb on a '96 Roadmaster wagon? Would it be 4" of backspacing on a 7" wide wheel and 5" of backspacing on an 8" wide wheel?

Thanks! Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm working on tire sizes with tiresize.com to keep the tires at about the same diameter as the stock 225/75R15s. With the 17x7, I was thinking of a 235/60R17...

Thanks!

If you put 1/4 inch spacers behind the wheels, and longer studs so the nuts will engage enough, you will have the same offset as the stock wheels

How wide and what offset wheel are referring to with the spacer?

The ones you described.

I am still lost, the wheels I described are Vision wheels, 7" wide and zero offset. A quarter inch spacer (.250") will take them to minus 6mm (.236") not plus 6mm like the stock wheels unless I am looking at things wrong.

On the 4" backspace with 7" width, that ckamin mention, it would work by taking the wheel from +.500" to .250" or about 12mm to 6mm+.

I don't think it would take you to +6mm on the 5" backspace and 8" with .500" too much positive offset for the other wheel ckamin, mentioned.

booster wrote:

Fred Kiehl wrote:

booster wrote:

Fred Kiehl wrote:

ckamin wrote:

Howdy! I'm deciding which size wheel to go with... What is the general rule of thumb on a '96 Roadmaster wagon? Would it be 4" of backspacing on a 7" wide wheel and 5" of backspacing on an 8" wide wheel?

Thanks! Any guidance would be appreciated. I'm working on tire sizes with tiresize.com to keep the tires at about the same diameter as the stock 225/75R15s. With the 17x7, I was thinking of a 235/60R17...

Thanks!

If you put 1/4 inch spacers behind the wheels, and longer studs so the nuts will engage enough, you will have the same offset as the stock wheels

How wide and what offset wheel are referring to with the spacer?

The ones you described.

I am still lost, the wheels I described are Vision wheels, 7" wide and zero offset.  A quarter inch spacer (.250") will take them to minus 6mm (.236") not plus 6mm like the stock wheels unless I am looking at things wrong.

On the 4" backspace with 7" width, that ckamin mention, it would work by taking the wheel from +.500" to .250" or about 12mm to 6mm+.

I don't think it would take you to +6mm on the 5" backspace and 8" with .500" too much positive offset for the other wheel ckamin, mentioned.

I was referring to the ones ckamin mentioned. Yeah, the 8" with 5" backspacing would need 3/4" spacers. I have had a couple of major stress issues, and did not complete the math.