Traction Control Needed...
Well, I keep running into issues no matter what I find. Wheel Vintiques makes a nice looking 14" x 8" wheel (5 x 4" bp) (48-4854458 if you want to look it up), and I think that wheel would look good on the Scamp. That 8" wheel would hold that 265/50-14 tire real nice.
But the way that rear fender rides over the top of the tire, I don't think a tire as wide as the 265 is going to fit in there. That sucks! Because the wheels are great, and I can get a narrower Wheel Vintiques wheel for pizza cutter fronts and that would be great. ... But the dern rear fenders!
You can get those in a custom backspace for a few dollars more. But sooner or later you'll be putting the inner sidewall into the leafspring and so that will have to get moved over. Then you can run about 10 to 15 more mm. Moving the springs is no big deal. You can also get your current steelies widened towards the inside, and the spider moved; people used to do that all the time,me included,lol.
Just measure the distance from the outer sidewall bulge to the nearest offending part of the inner fender, and the same on the inside. Then remove the wheel, lay it flat, lay a straightedge over the top two buldges and measure to the floor. Add those three together and subtract; 1/2 inch for drag-racing, and up to 1 inch for soft street springs. Then convert that to metric, and voila that is your maximun sidewall cross-section with the springs moved outta the way.
Say you got 12 inches , and subtracting 1 for clearance, and converting,you get 279. The closest tire is a 275. And it wants a rim of 9.3 which
rounds to 9.0
Now, say you had a 205 (8inch section-width) in there now, with 1.2 to the outside and 2.8 to the inside.
And say you currently had a 5.5 inch rim with a 3.25 inch backspace. Well just add the 3.25 inch bs to the 2.8 room and then deduct 1/2 for clearance and you get a new bs of
6 inches
Since the rim width desired is 9.0, then that rim will be 10" in overall dimension. that leaves 10.0 less 6 equals a front space of 4 inches. Your current front space with a 5.5 wheel@3"BS would be (5.5 +1)less 3 equals 3.5. So you will be increasing it by 4 less 3.5= .5 , leaving you .7 clearance on the outside. This will allow you to run a spacer if required of up to 1/4 inch to center the wheel. All numbers were pulled from a hat and may not bear any resemblance to what you have. They are just an exercise. Measure both sides of the car!! This exercise assumes you moved the springs out of the way. If you didn't then you would use the spring as the intruding inboard edge, but you can run very,very, close to the spring. I have seen guys run less than 1/8 and get away with it.
So there you go; get a tape measure, a square, a 3ft level, a plumb-line, a cement floor, and a pencil. Then get to it.
If you have a 4bbl360, any 4bbl360, or a hot 318, then you need the biggest tires back there that you can fit. And that means moving the springs, so just bite the bullet and get it done. If at some later date you decide to narrow the rear end to open up your tire selection, then because these custom wheels fit a stocker, you should have no trouble selling them.
But I highly recommend 15s on account of I don't know if you could get a 14 inch 275 street tire. Again WV will sell you just about anything.... They can put a 5on 4 14" spider into a 15" rim; I know this cuz they built me a pair.
I don't know where PTC is but if it was in Canada I'd offer them to you. 15 x 8s ,4" bc, and IIRC........
about,lol, 5.5" bs for the front of my car.
