Installing 1995 Mustang Cobra 17x8" Wheels

I wanted to further update the appearance and handling of Elvira and the convertible, so here's what I did to fit huge (for an old Mopar, anyway) 17x8" wheels all the way around. They're a far cry from the 13x4.5" wheels that came on Elvira when she left the factory!

To start with, Elvira is outfitted with the very stylish 4.5" bolt pattern on both ends with the B-body 11.75" rotors up front. She's also wearing 225/60-15's on '77 New Yorker 6.5" wheels and the stock '69 poverty caps. Sweet... The Cobra wheels measure 17x8", and have 5.675" of backspace. This is about max for a stock A-body suspension using 17" wheels. The max for 16" wheels is right at 5", and 4.5" for 15" wheels. The reason more backspace is desirable is so that you can pull more of the wheel under the car and not risk hitting the fenders with your new wide tires. This allows you to stay low and maintain good handling.

NOTE: these wheels, and other wheels designed for Fords, have a smaller center register than good ol' Mopars. To make this wheel fit, I had to grind off enough material in the center of the wheel to allow the wheel to slip over the front and rear wheel registers. I did this with a drill and a cutting bit, so it's not pretty. A tough call on a $75 wheel, but it had a little road rash, and I plan on using it as a spare only. This was just for fitting. The full set I bought I will have opened up by a machine shop on either a lathe or using a boring bar. Should be a simple operation, but is something you must consider when going with any higher-end aftermarket wheel.

Here's both tires/wheels for comparison. 255/45 on the left, 225/60 is on the right. As you can see, the 255 is quite a bit taller, and I think is a little too much for the stock Valiant wheel openings. Ditto for stock Gen2 Barracudas. Darts might be OK, though. FWIW, the 255/45 is a little too wide for an 8" wheel. If you're going that wide, you should really use a 9" wheel, minimum. You want the sidewalls as straight as you can get them on this kind of tire.

Here's the clearance turning in on the front of the wheel opening, about 1/2".

Here's the rear wheel opening clearance, also about 1/2", but note the head of the fender bolt directly right of the Pentastar. I found interference here when going over driveways and turning... A shorter tire might cure this.

Wheel to outer tie rod end clearance... good stuff. Shows limit of wheel width inboard to be about max.

Note the clearance, or near-lack-thereof on the zerk fitting for the upper ball joint. It isn't touching, but since this relationship does change some as the suspension reacts to bumps, I removed the zerk before I drove the car. However, there IS a fix for this... check out this other UBJ design, which will give you at least 1/2" to 3/4" more clearance at this area...

Here are some shots of the wheel on the car from different angles...

Now for the rear of the car...

Current rear end is an 8.25" A-body unit with 3.21:1 gears. 10"x2" drum brakes.

Yes, those are the ends of the lugs, and yes, they're just barely peeking through the lug holes in the wheels. For this wheel to work on the back of the car, you need to have an axle that is at least 1.25-1.5" longer, just to get the tire away from the spring.

See? It's tight in there. Insufficient clearance to work with the stock A-body axle. Looks like I'll need a B-body axle to get the needed width...

So, the current status of this project is that I know what will fit, and I know how to do it. I still need to install the B-body axle, and I still need to get tires for the full set of Cobra wheels I got off of eBay. Once I handle those two tasks, I'll update this page with a link to the final product.

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Updated 12-24-01