Wheels and tires can make the look of a car, but there are some steps to take to properly measure, order, test, mount, and balance them to avoid issues down the road.
The first challenge is how to properly measure the wheels to fit your car. The following video uses a FORGELINE wheel to demonstrate how to measure Custom wheels are built to order, so it’s important to get the measurements right. In this video, we use a FORGELINE custom racing wheel to demonstrate the techniques used to measure wheel width, backspace, and frontspace, as well as offset. These dimensions are not hard to measure and calculate, and this video will help you get them right.shows what’s involved.
Proper tire clearance is just as important as wheel fitment, and we use some special tools to simulate a wheel and check tire fitment before wheels are ordered. This allows us to turn the steering wheels from lock-to-lock and check for any potential interference.
Once the wheels arrive, DO NOT simply take them out of the box and mount your tires. ALWAYS to a “dry fit”, were you test the wheel on the car without the tire mounted to double check the fitment. If you mount the tires, the wheels will be yours to keep, and most wheel companies will not swap them out for a different set. Custom wheels are generally yours to keep as soon as they are built, but an unmounted wheel is better than one that has tire mounting damage should something need to change.
Once you’re certain the fit is correct, you can mount your tires and balance the wheel and tire combination. We do this in-house to ensure the wheels are handled with proper care, and prefer to dynamic balance wheels and tires in our shop, and we do this in-house to ensure the wheels are handled with proper care.
Only after all these steps are taken are the wheels and tires mounted finally on the car. We prefer to check and correct any alignment issues at this time, to ensure the new rubber does not wear prematurely and the suspension system delivers optimal performance. Our in-house Hunter digital alignment rack allows us to dial-in our preferred settings as needed.
We have a comprehensive alignment questionnaire for our customers to fill out ahead of time, so that we know what type of suspension modifications and driving styles they will be doing. This allows us to tailor the alignment to the car and driver. See the form here: V8 Speed & Resto Shop Vehicle Alignment Questionnaire
Only after all these steps are complete is the car ready to go out and show off the new wheels and tires to the world! Contact us today for a wheel and tire upgrade on your ride, we’re happy to help!
