1974 duster wheel ideas
Man love those 18” wheels on your duster!! I agree Im more worried about having to much poke in the rear, I like them to be just slightly inside the fenders.
I have gerst tubular K member for front, and am cutting down a Dana 60 in the rear, so not worried about figment in the rear.
which wheels are those and what tire size/brand would you recommend as final choice?
So first, talk to Gerst about what fits and how that suspension changes the front track width. I run a factory '74 V8 k-frame (reinforced of course) with the factory style torsion bar suspension. Other than the K-frame and spindles pretty much everything else is aftermarket parts, but the track width is basically factory. I know that compared to the 73+ track width the RMS and HDK set ups don't significantly widen anything, but I'm not sure about the Gerst. All of them tend to increase the turning radius. With 18's on a factory style suspension all the suspension parts clear or fit inside the rim, so you can go with the big backspaces needed to run much wider tires.
With that said, the wheels on my Duster are Enkei RPF1's. The fronts are 18x9 +35 and the rears are 18x10 +38's. I also have DoctorDiff's 13" cobra style front disk brake kit, which adds about 5/16" to the track compared to a stock '73+ disk set up.
The tires are now Falken Azeni RT615K+'s, which have a treadwear of 200. Front's are 275/35/18 and rears are 295/40/18. They grip really well, even compared to the BFG KDW 2's I had on the car before. I've been happily surprised that they grip well even in the rain and cold, because they're summer performance tires and usually the grip drops off when the temps are below about 45°.
As for tires, I look for performance tires that have treadwear ratings between 200 and about 340 with wet traction ratings of A or AA and temp rating of A. Basically I go to tirerack and looks for "extreme" or "max" performance summer tires. Pretty much all of the tires that are in those categories with a treadwear between 200-340 are good tires, they don't all have a lot of sizes available so your tire size choice will play a big role in what your options are. I wanted taller tires in the back this time around and the 275/35/18 in conjunction with the 295/40/18 only left the Falken's. But the 295's in the back really narrow the field. As long as you stay away from stuff with treadwear ratings over 400 you should do pretty well.
Which is also why I don't run 15's anymore. Nothing street legal in a 15" rim that you can get in decent sizes and a treadwear under 400. The BFG T/A's and Cobra's are absolute hockey pucks compared to the modern tires I've run.
