no room for Tires?

[Duster440]

i have a 71 duster, and putting a 440 in it. i have just realized that this creates a new problem , i dont have enough room for rubber on the ends of the 8 3/4. What is recommended for me to do with making some room for my tires , and what type of rims should i use , it has the 14" ralley's on it now. Did the a body barracuda have some sort of leafspring relocation on it ? by the looks of my rear springs , im not going to have much fun doing this , thanks for all the info , greatly appreciated.

[V10nacuda]

Duster 440,
You can put a 275 60 R 15 tire on that car with a 15 X 8" wheel 4 1/4 back spacing. The duster has quite alot of room. ABC Industries makes a Bolt in unit that moves the springs inboard of the frame.. The only welding would be the axle perches.

V10

[MopART]

ram1500 is right.... sorry. About all you can get under there is an 8" slick or DOT tire if you can find one for the 14" rim.

If this is a race car and the 440 has some hp to it, ya' better get busy moving those springs.

One way out:

You can use a 28 or 26x9 slick, however it will rub a bit on the inside unless you can find a 1/8" spacer and then it gets close to the inner fender lip. You can solve that by rolling the fender. If you use the spacer, I suggest you change the stock lugs. For one, they are too short and secondly, they are too weak to use with the spacer.
The 9" wide slick is ample for traction on your car unless you are in the low 10's in the 1/4 and that would be considering you leave the line at more than 4000rpm.

You can get your local tire store to convert this to metric measurements if you are talking about street tires. I've never been a math wiz.

good luck
ART

[Duster440]

mabey i should be a little more clear , i dont want to race the car that much , i just want a good set for street traction . the engine will have about 375 hp , 4spd, 3.91 sure grip. i just dont want to be spinning when i dont really want to, if u know what i mean. i dont want the tires to stick out from the body that far either. once again , thanks!!

[This message has been edited by Duster440 (edited April 05, 2000).]

[Keith]

I've heard that moving the springs in can adversely effect handling on a street car. I thought about doing that on my 67 cuda, but the guy that does my welding said he did that for someone once and they weren't happy with the results. So I just dropped the idea since I just have a 340 street car and didn't really need it. I would like to hear from someone first hand what they think about this.

Keith

[440 demon]

Duster 440,
I ran into the same problem on my demon.I lucked out and bought a narrowed 8 3/4 that had 9" cut out of it,i cut the wheel wells out and had tubs made from 16 gage steel and moved them into the frame,that alone gave me 2 1/5 to three inches.Then i bought super stock springs and moved them on the inside of the frame rails and up three inches.I just put my tires and rims on last weekend,i'm running 345/55r15 or 30" tall x 14" wide bf goodrich drag radials, I'm glad i went to all the trouble of tubbing the car,it looks bad!!!
Good luck on your project.