Wide body wheel widths and offset Options

[FastFroggy]

I was taking a break from the fiberglass repair and noticed on my car that the tires sit different front to rear. then I was surprised that the fronts are 9in and rears are 8in wide rims... then the final surprise was that the offsets were significantly different.

My car is a 5 bolt conversion 73 914-4 of unknown origin with wide body fenders.

Please explain the general convention on this.

Thanks

[john914somers]

I too am struggling a bit with the winter upgrades, I recently purchased some 17x10 and 17x11's. The 11's fill the rear flairs nicely but the 10's are a little too wide for my fronts. The wheels I am currently using are 17 x 7.5 and 9's with 1" spacers. So I have 3 options, I could buy some different inner barrels for my fronts and reduce the width down to something smaller that will easily fit, I was thinking 8.5" or I could modify my flairs or completely change them. Some reliable sources have told me that 8's and 11's are too much stagger and that the best set up is 10's and 12's. I'm leaning towards sticking with the 10's and 11's and trying to modify the flairs and if that doesn't work just changing them all together. Does anybody have any experience with too much under steal with 8's or 8.5's run with 11's. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this topic but my questions are of a similar nature. Thanks!

[Randal]

Some reliable sources have told me that 8's and 11's are too much stagger and that the best set up is 10's and 12's. Thanks!

It all depends upon what events you are running and how wide you want the front tires. If you do the arithmetic and figure out stagger based upon weight balance there are situations where 8's and 11's are perfect.