Stupid question about wheel fitment

[crazyfireman]

I currently have Coy 18x8 wheels on the front of my car. They have a 4.5 backspacing. My question is if I go to a 18x7 with the same backspacing will my outlip go inward the 1"??

[NOT A TA]

yes

[marc_b]

yes, and here's a good link which helped me.
http://www.rims-n-tires.com/rt_specs.jsp

[Boesch]

There's no such thing as a stupid question. As said above, yes you will loose 1" of outer lip. The space on the back side of the rim will remain the same (since you are keeping the same backspace). If you wanted to maintain the same amount of outer lip you'd have to make your backspacing 3.5" on a 7" rim.

[EastCoast]

As the other have said, Yes you take one inch off the outer lip. But when I was figuring this out for my wheels, I felt I had to take it one step further and always calculate how much the edge of the tire would move.

So if you remove one inch from the wheel, once the tire centers up the outer edge of the tire will move in 1/2 an inch (since the inner lip is not moving). This logic seemed to work out correctly for me.

Robb

[crazyfireman]

Great! thanks for all the help, I think I may have fixed my slight rubbing problem by rolling my front fender lips. My wife would kill me if I bought new rims, But it all worked out.