Wide Fronts on a 68 Dart

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lildemonkid

lildemonkid

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ok, so i wanna see what the widest wheels and tires that fit and still turn on an a-body. Soon i am going to be stiffining, mini tubbing, and installing a hotchkis kit on the dart. the coolest would be if i could fit 12 inch wides under the front with the proper backspacing but i am pretty sure there isnt enough room. What is the widest you guys have? :burnout:
 
A lot is going to depend on what brake set-up you have on the car as far as the front end is concerned. A factory disk brake set up will widen the front track. This is true if the KH 4" bolt pattern or the Bendix 4½" bolt pattern hub is used.

I have a 72 Demon with a 75 K-member, BBP disk brakes, and 15 x 7 cop car wheels (4¼" back space). I tried 255/60 which would not fit under the fender. I found that 235/60-15 will fit but just barely. When it is time to replace these tires, I plan to use 225/60-15s.
 
Search for user "tomswheels". He's got a Valiant with 18x10 all around IIRC.
 
DNasty777 said:
Search for user "tomswheels". He's got a Valiant with 18x10 all around IIRC.
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Yeah, but his fenders are pulled/flared a touch. He's running a 295/35/18, I think. I'll be fitting a 255/40/18 on mine with a +32mm offset wheel, Hotchkis TVS, and Dr Diff Stage 4 kit. I still have quite a bit of room between the frame rails and the wheels. The only time I hit was under full droop and full lock and that was barely. If I tried hard enough, I could probably fit a 275/35/18. I think that's about the limit on stock tub A-bodies.
 
Tom's running a 285/35/18 on an 18x10 up front, but yeah, he pulled the fenders out a bit.

I have 275/35/18's on my Duster on 18x9's. My Duster is being cloned over to a Demon, so it has Dart front fenders on it now with no issues after I lengthened the stock fender-to-bumper braces a smidge to push the lower fender corners out. My 18x9's have a 35mm offset, but I have a Dr Diff 13" brake kit which adds 3/16" to the offset in addition to the 73+ disk track width. I currently run 3mm spacers too, but I probably need to go to 5mm spacers as my tires are just touching the frame at full lock still. So if you add all that up its about 25mm of offset on 18x9's for the stock 73+ disk track width. It would be the same for 18x10's since offset doesn't change with rim width (backspace does).

The '76 Dart Sport that Hotchkis is building also has 275/35/18's on 18x10's.

I think 18x10 is the most you're going to run up front, and that will probably require tubular UCA's to clear the rims at full lock. And a 275/35/18 is probably the widest you can really expect go without starting to modify bodywork. Some cars can obviously take a little more, but that depends on how much wheel lip rolling and fender stretching you're willing to do.
 
72bluNblu said:
Tom's running a 285/35/18 on an 18x10 up front, but yeah, he pulled the fenders out a bit.

I have 275/35/18's on my Duster on 18x9's. My Duster is being cloned over to a Demon, so it has Dart front fenders on it now with no issues after I lengthened the stock fender-to-bumper braces a smidge to push the lower fender corners out. My 18x9's have a 35mm offset, but I have a Dr Diff 13" brake kit which adds 3/16" to the offset in addition to the 73+ disk track width. I currently run 3mm spacers too, but I probably need to go to 5mm spacers as my tires are just touching the frame at full lock still. So if you add all that up its about 25mm of offset on 18x9's for the stock 73+ disk track width. It would be the same for 18x10's since offset doesn't change with rim width (backspace does).

The '76 Dart Sport that Hotchkis is building also has 275/35/18's on 18x10's.

I think 18x10 is the most you're going to run up front, and that will probably require tubular UCA's to clear the rims at full lock. And a 275/35/18 is probably the widest you can really expect go without starting to modify bodywork. Some cars can obviously take a little more, but that depends on how much wheel lip rolling and fender stretching you're willing to do.
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Yeah, because my car hit the frame rails at full-lock and full droop with a 17x8, +30mm offset, and a 275/40/17 (measures to be about the same width and height as my 255/40/18's due to the less wide wheel) I also purchased +5mm spacers for my 18x9 wheels with a +32mm offset.
 
DNasty777 said:
Thats brilliant! I'm going to have to remember that when I go wider in the front.
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You can also do this by redrilling the bottom front fender support hole foward of the stock hole. I did that to fit 245/60/15 with 15 x 6.5 rallye rims on the front of my 68 Dart.

If your car has top front fender supports, you can adjust those to the max and put spacers between the support brace to inner fender brace.
 
DNasty777 said:
Thats brilliant! I'm going to have to remember that when I go wider in the front.
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Nah brilliant would have been to make the braces out of aluminum with rod ends so they would be lighter and a heck of a lot better looking. Heck even autoxcuda's method of just moving the fender mounting hole forward is smarter.

But I had a couple extra's so I just cut and welded. Ugly, but functional. They're almost 2" longer than the stockers, but I'm probably only using about 1.5" of that. There's a point where it becomes pretty obvious that pulling the fender further out will make irreversible changes to the fender bodywork.

IMG_1950_zps72a4664c.jpg
 
check out protouringmopar.com

They have a lot of wide tired cars there
 
roccodart440 said:
check out protouringmopar.com

They have a lot of wide tired cars there
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Yeah but all the guys with A-bodies over there are on Fabo too :D. I have a few threads going over there myself under the screen name "demonizer".

Widest tires up front on an A-body that I've heard of are still the 285's on Tom's Valiant. And I know he stretched the fenders to do it. There's a few people running 275's up front on a Dart other than me, 72BBSwinger and now the Hotchkis Dart Sport off the top of my head. As I mentioned earlier I think that's the biggest you can go without getting into some significant and irreversible fender modifications.
 
Thanks a bunch guys. I'm getting ready to buy the Hotchkis TVS kit and convert the little drums over to 73 duster one piston discs. The rear is getting an A-Body 8 3/4 and a summit rear disc kit and the us cartool leaf spring relocation. I want to run 18's on the car but all the ones i like are either 800 a wheel or don't come wide enough for what i'd like. haha. Expensive taste i guess?
 
lildemonkid said:
Thanks a bunch guys. I'm getting ready to buy the Hotchkis TVS kit and convert the little drums over to 73 duster one piston discs. The rear is getting an A-Body 8 3/4 and a summit rear disc kit and the us cartool leaf spring relocation. I want to run 18's on the car but all the ones i like are either 800 a wheel or don't come wide enough for what i'd like. haha. Expensive taste i guess?
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I was very happy with my wilwood conversions.
 

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Might also consider a later b-body rear so you don't have to use odd backspaces front and rear. Cheaper than an A housing too.
 
pauly v.100 said:
Might also consider a later b-body rear so you don't have to use odd backspaces front and rear. Cheaper than an A housing too.
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X2 Take this man's advice. From personal experience, it's a huge PIA!!! It took me months before I could find a set of wheels that were available.
 
Sorry, late to this one, but yes 285/35/18 on 18x10 inch wheels in front with the Hotchkis TVS kit is exactly what I'm running. I actually think the height of these caused a lot of my small fender massaging issues, you'd be better off with a 285/30/18 (Dunlop makes a Z2 this size). Really the work I did on the front fenders was pretty minor (see pic). In the rear I'm running 19x10.5 wheels with 305/30/19 tires, no tubs, but I did push out the rear fenders quite a bit. I know it's not everyone's favorite but you can also get a Ford 8.8 cheap in any junkyard and put that out back, that's what I did to get to get rear disc brakes and a limited slip all for the princely sum of $200...
 

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tomswheels said:
...285/35/18 on 18x10 inch wheels in front with the Hotchkis TVS kit is exactly what I'm running...
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a couple questions: what offset on the wheels and how are you liking the heim joints? do you street drive this and how many mile do you have on TVS kit.

edit: what are you running for T bars?

thanks
chuck
 
Chuck, those wheels are +42 offset, no Heim joint issues. I do street drive it, only about 1000 miles so far. 1.06 Firm Feel bars. I have the Hotchkis/Fox shocks, they make it nice to be able to firm up for Autocross and soften up for street driving.
 

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thanks, didn't know the fox shocks were adjustable.
your car is almost exactly what I planned for my recently acquired 69' dart. haven't auto-crossed for a few years and I'm ready to get back to it.
 
The newest ones are adjustable. We will be out at Qualcomm stadium (San Diego) running our first event for the year this Sunday if you want to see her run...
 

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tomswheels said:
The newest ones are adjustable. We will be out at Qualcomm stadium (San Diego) running our first event for the year this Sunday if you want to see her run...
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thanks, would love to but got to work sunday. thought that's where you were running.
have fun
chuck
 
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