I have been away from the forum for quite a while. Life gets in the way sometimes. I know some of you will think I'm crazy to do what I'm going to undertake. I have a lifted Eagle already. The SX4 in my avatar has 31" BFG mud terrains. Now I'm wanting to go the other way and lower my 83 wagon. The idea is Pro touring kind of build. My question to you folks is has anyone tried to run 17" rims and low profile rubber? I'm thinking about something along the size of 225/50/17. I want to keep the 4wd system for increased traction with the hp I hope to be using. The plan is 360 swap. The wagon has a 5 spd trans, so I'll swap in an AX15 I have from an XJ to better handle the added hp. Any insight would be welcomed.
Skippywheels,
I went with 235/55ZR-17 tires on 17x7 wheels on my '84 wagon. That combination has the advantage of being a near-exact match to the stock wheel/tire diameter, so gearing and speedometer stay the same, but the contact patch is much larger for road handling. And the extra flotation doesn't hurt off-road, either.
Here's a picture:
(http://i1352.photobucket.com/albums/q646/JohnBendik/croppedDSC00081_zps38738ff3.jpg)
and a link to my original post on the change:http://forums.amceaglesden.com/index.php?topic=42205.0 (http://forums.amceaglesden.com/index.php?topic=42205.0). The original post has more pictures and a description of a few body mods I had to do.
I don't know if the pictures will come through... sometimes the 'Photobucket' images seem to show up and sometimes they don't. If there's a way to upload images directly, I don't know it.
JB
Thanks for posting the pic. :occasion14: That is exactly what I'm looking for. I'm going to drop the suspension height by a few inches to lower the center of gravity for improved handling to go along with the power increase.
I know I will have to spend a little time measuring to get correct offset so I don't have any fender rubbing or interference on the springs but I think there can be some significant handling improvements.
Awsome. I want 17's on the wagon and have a hard time trying to find the right offset /backspace.
Thinking 17x7/17x8