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1994 (C4) Wheels available - rcommendations?

WayneLBurnham

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 30, 2002
Messages
304
Location
Dallas County, Texas
Corvette
'75 Modified Red Ragtop: "LEFTLN"
I have the complete fore and aft VBP suspension packages and the Gear Vendor is en route....

The last real slop in the handling (aside from the actual steering box and current lack of PS) is the 15" steel wheels with the V rated Michelin Pilots. I could use one or two new ones in the next 5K miles or so anyhow so this is a decent time to consider a swap.

They are very good tires, but even those much stiffer sidewalls allow most of the difference between a 0.67 and nearly 1.0 lateral G - and they are only V rated. With my OD coming to return my higher speed capabilities (165-170) I need at least a temporary upgrade before the wheels for the final engine that started the project necessitates some surgery, trailing arms and such to get 12-14" of meat. For now improved handling and a slight increase in contact area would be fine - and not involving $3500+ in custom wheels, tires, offset trailing arms, flares, possible swap out to different calipers all round, etc.

Enter my friend at work who for some weird reason hated the styling on his stock 94 ones on his new car and spent $2400 for some flashy swap out. He's basically offered to just give me the wheels and even the rubber on them for nothing (need a couple, but would probably get all new anyhow.)

I believe these are 17x9.5" - which are a nice improvement from 15x8" steel and VBP has some adapters to make the mating simple enough. If the temporary engine was making any power I would never consider spacer adapters, no matter how high end, but 500 ftlbs shouldn't be too much extra stress. The number of available 17" Z rated meats is much much greater than for 15". I could even go with some Z rated Pilots as I really have liked the performance, traction wise, of these.

I need to put on VBP's all SS p-brake deal anyhow, since the cable is actually broken on one side as I discovered when I rebuilt the not-that-old o-ring caplipers a couple or three weeks back. So moving the cable mount points is no big deal. (Or just removing the whole parking brake system since it never works all that well anyhow. Thanks for that observation 69MyWay on one of the older threads!)

Now I think these have run flats currently. I have no great need for that feature, but would even consider it - even consider adding what I assume is a common receiver and making a display minipanel for the low pressure sensors, although I check tire pressure every few days anyhow. One day I wanted to put together a wheel bearing overheat system anyhow after having the left rear spindle melt off like it was made of butter from a seized bearing a couple of years ago with literally no warning. A little set of 4-12 LED's or even - yes! - more gauges! - would be just the thing!

Any thoughts or advise on this swap or tire selection or a thumbnail of how the whole low pressure system functions including a cheap source of the car based portions and type of signal (4-20mA, 0-1V, 0-5KOhms, etc.) involved?

I read the previous threads on wheel swaps and they answered some questions. Appreciate any thoughts on this.
 

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