Has anyone ever thought of using 17 or 18 inch steel wheels that look like the old 15" steelies? Do they even exist? I would love to run some 17's on the front of my car so I can run big brakes and benefit from better tire selection but I want it to look stock.

Thanks!

Stockton or wheel vintique makes some. A member on here had a set of 17s for sale a year or so ago. I'd have got them if I had the cash. I'm not sure what they cost new but he only wanted $900 with good tires

I think that Stockton wheel is no longer in business. I tried to find them but had no luck. Tim

Stockton Wheel Top of a Google search. "under new ownership", May be why you couldn't find them. I looked into getting some cop wheels done in 17", it was spendy and the are very HEAVY. HTH, Steve

They do exist. You can have them made.

But they would be ungodly heavy. My 15" steel racing rims are 22#. There are a number of 17" aluminum rims that are around the 22-25# range. 18" aluminum is around 25-28#. 17 to 18" steel rims are going to be in the range of 30-35# each. that's a 60+% increase in wheel weight, or enough to be noticeable when driving. You will need to put your shocks on a regular replacement schedule with that much mass.

on the weight. Pick up a 15x8 Ramcharger rim and compare to a 15x7 copcar rim. Also, being a larger diameter and being steel (vs alum) raises the inertia quite a bit (meaning, harder to rotate and steer it).

And the diameter difference might make the hubcap look too small?

Someone make an aluminum rim that looks like steel rim. There was a blue 67 Coronet with 17's on it and redline thin sidewall tires at a Spring Fling once. There are pictures of it on MoparMax online magazine.

"Holy Crap those would be heavy!" was my first thought when I saw this thread title!

Look at LX dodge charger police wheels. They'll work.

this guy made an 18x12. Cant imagine what they weigh but they look cool.

http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/258919/

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"Holy Crap those would be heavy!" was my first thought when I saw this thread title!

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How have you been Scott? I picked up that 68 from you back in 02-03 or something like that. You get that challenger going?

Place I buy some aluminum outers from (and who also make steel ones) is just making some 20" steel wheels to use a Chevy ralley cap. They had some solid centers made up and cut the windows in it to look like a ralley.

They weight a TON.. (but it's what the customer wanted which is why they did it)

Oh, and the proportions do look odd as well with the small center cap in the middle of such a large area.

My 18" x 10" aluminum wheels only are around 19 pounds each, I think I will stick with that over tank wheels.

I have 18" steel cop wheels from the new charger with dog dis caps, they are for sale

The large diameter steelies (Stockton) used standard 15" centers with the diameter added in the rim portion. That means they have about the same brake clearance as a 15" wheel... no go for anything bigger than an 11 3/4" OE style rotor. That made them a non-starter for me before I even figured out the weight.

Now if somebody designed and manufactured a steel wheel without the weight and brake clearance penalties... I'd be interested.

Carlise (Carlise wheel that is...) who I buy alot of steel outers from make a few different 17" steel outers. Thier customer service is terrible is the only problem (I cringe every time I have a big order to place, but they have a captive market), but I do have thier sizes handy.. they do a couple different ones.
A 17" standard is 15.470" ID
A 17" custom is 14.228" ID

So obviously the standard are going to use a larger center than a normal 15" wheel so you would get more brake clearance that way.


The 20" steel outers are done by another company I deal with...I think they might do 17's and perhaps 18's as well. Don't know thier center ID sizes though off hand on the 20" ones at least.

last time I checked the 17x8 steel rim was around 48lbs - I wish someone would make an aluminum version of the steel rim

17" x 8" steel outer with 15.470" ID is 23.6 pounds.
17" x 8" steel outer with 14.228" ID is 24.4 pounds.

Then add 10-12 pounds for the center section and you are in the 30-35 range I quoted earlier.


What a lot of poeple don't know is that in the early to mid 70s, 1/2 ton dodge trucks could be found with a 16" steel wheel with a 5 lug pattern. If you can score a set of these, you can use them to create 17" steelies. The simplest way is to remove the center and reweld in a 17" steel outer hoop.

I didn't know that. Just did some digging and it appears these rims are 16x5, so too narrow to use as-is (which was my first thought).

The disc diameter would have to match the ID of the other rim's hoop, though.

Does this truck rim take the 9" car cap or the larger 3/4-ton-size cap?

Good question that I don't know the answer to. The set I had I seem to recall seeing the tabs for poverty caps, but I'm not positive. I sold them several years ago to someone who was going to have them modified to 17x8.