I mounted late model LX rear wheel drive wheels on My '65 Barracuda with somewhat easy modifications, and I thought I'd post on FAO on what I did to make them work. Considering I got this set of 17X7 aluminum wheels off an 06' Charger for just $120 on craigslist I felt this was a very economical choice to able a have good variety modern tires to help make my vintage ride handle much better that might be available for the factory 13's wheels or with 14's and 15's for that matter. I found on there's been some talk as that these wheels have a true 4 ½ (114.3mm) bolt circle, I can contest that they do, in fact that the 4 ½ bolt circle is very common on most Japanese 5 lug wheels. In case your wondering by now my car was already swapped out with 73' disc brakes and rear axle so it is now 4 ½.
How I Mounted 17" LX Rear Drive Wheels on My Cuda
- Thread starter Valkman
- Start date
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nice, let's see a pic of how the whole car sits on those modern wheels.
I found the best offset for a these 7 wide wheels for my car would be 4 ½. These wheels have a 4 ¼ offset so I used a ¼ wheel spacers to get the desired results. These aluminum wheels have a thicker webbing where the lugs mount so I had to install ½ longer studs. The biggest problem I ran into was the concentric whole was too narrow to fit over my front spindles which are about 2 9/16 in diameter. I bought a 2 ½ metal hole saw to bore a bigger hole, I then used a die grinder to clean out the rest to achieve the needed clearance. I wasn't too concerned about them being hub eccentric because these wheels also use conical lug nuts which should keep the wheel centered on the hub.
This leaves a pretty ugly hole so I found some chrome wheel center (Mr. Gasket #1750) that cost me about $40 for the set on Ebay that covered the hole very nicely. I to drilled and tapped mounting holes and I also ground off some of the center's tabs so they would conform to the curvature of the wheel face.
I mounted 225/50-17 tires in the rear and 215/40-17 up front and I've had no clearance issue with this set up. It works out the rear tire diameters are same as the factory F78-14 and the fronts are slightly smaller lowering the front end a little.
Keith Mopar
Mopar Nut
Nice, what size tires do you plan on running?
I typed as you posted the tires size sorry....
I typed as you posted the tires size sorry....
No problem I did it in several post so I could get the pictures in order:-D
Keith Mopar
Mopar Nut
Tire and wheel combo looks good. Give's the car a nice stance.
Just curious how you verified whether or not they're 5 x 114.3mm compared to a 5 x 115mm (which seems to be the listed bolt pattern for all Chargers, Challengers, etc.). I've heard that even this small of a difference has known to have pretty bad consequences in some cases. Although, sometimes people get lucky and there are exceptions.
There's been a lot posted about this in FAO, and other member's have posted pictures on how the proper measuring gauge showing they are indeed the 114.3mm. They fit and center on the studs just fine no issues (IMO!!!).
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