83" El Camino 18" wheel fitment

[83Camino]

Question for you G Body guys. Lookin for some wheel fitment advice on my 83' El Camino. Right now she is currently stock height however my plans are to lower her about 2 inches. Now since Im lazy and dont like figuring out conversions, I do know the stock pattern is 5 on 4.75. If my memory serves me correctly would that be 5x120?



Now on to what fits - the wheels I am looking at are in metric offsets and backspacing. Considering I have the stock rear axle... is it possible to run a 18x8 up front and a 18x9.5 in the rear? The reason I ask is if they are 5x120 then in a 18x8 they only have a 35 offset for the front with a 1.5" lip, and for the 18x9.5 it only lists a 45 offset with a 3" lip

[mc84_zz4]

The correct bolt circle is 4.75" or 5x120.67, the 120mm wheels are close and they will fit, however, the wheels will cause lateral loading on the wheel studs.
There is a long thread regarding pro/con of running that size of wheel on a pro-touring car, ie: some have BMW wheels on their ride, but I would advise to read up on the subject before deciding.
https://www.pro-touring.com/showthre...ght=bmw+wheels
Do a search on 'BMW wheels', a lot of threads and info there...

Some like it, some also run adaptors to the wheels, I prefer not to tempt fate, as material stresses and I are well aquainted, if it can break, it will break on me. Wheels studs can snap, and wheel adaptor are a PITA to maintain properly torqued (IMO) so I avoid them, and get a correct fitting wheel instead.

You can fit 18x8, 18x9.5 on the g-body usually with 4.5" backspace(0mm offset) in the front, and 5.0" bs (-7mm ofset) on the rear. Usually a 245/40/18 and 275/35/18 would be the tire size I would chose for those.
Here is a link to the best wheel/tire calculator I have used:
http://www.rimsntires.com/specs.jsp?...t2=35mm offset

Note that a 4.5" backspace on a 8" wheel is 0mm offset, a 35mm offset is very simlar to a corvette wheel, and will need wheel adaptors to fit. You cannot run a rear wheel deeper than 5", as the frame and rear wheelwells get in tht way.

Unless the wheels you are looking at are at an incredible price, I would pass, as the price for the adaptors; you could invest into the wheels - just saying.
I hope that helps.

[mc84_zz4]

The Monte Carlo on the rear has 11" from the fender lip to the inside wheel well, the ElCo should be close, but could vary a little.
On the Monte it isn't uncommon that some have a slight variation on the rear axle/frame/body being a little off from left to right, some use a 1/4" spacer on one side.
The 9.5 wheel and 275s fill up nearly all of the available space.