Stock wheel centers on 15" wheel?

[GoldHawg]

I saw Michael Spreadbury's work on his wife's car where he mounted the center of one wheel onto a different diameter tire. I wondered if anyone has ever done this with later model wheels? I am interested in the stock look for one car with 15" wheels to support bigger brakes, as well as slightly wider tires.

[Pjackb]

Goldhawg

To clarify, the process Michael did was to modify the offset of a steel wheel to make it suitable to use on a Roadster .

In a nutshell he took a 15”x6” Altima/Sentra steel with an offset of ET45 and moved the center of the wheel inwards to provide a proper offset for the Roadster. This is not an easy tasks and you need to have the right tooling and know how to make this modification. Typically, if you find a shop willing to do this modification expect to pay easily $75-$100+ per wheel

If you want to use 15” wheels and maintain a somewhat stock look there are easier and less costly options

1- Use the aforementioned Altima wheels with 25-30mm spacers, by far this is the easiest option but IMO not the best looking as it just looks like winter wheels.

2- A much better looking option but harder to find it to look for a set 15x6 9 slot original steel from an Nissan S12 200SX (1983-86) these are hard to find but look very similar to the stock wheels and could be easily modified to receive the Datsun Moon Caps . Note that You would need the same spacers as for the Altima wheels to make these fit at original offset is 42 I beleive.

3- The Last option I know of for a 15” wheels is to use Triumph TR6 stock wheels, these are a direct fit with the proper offsets and center hub for a Roadster. There are 2 model of these the common 15x5.5 and the rarely seen 15x6

Here’s a picture of Michael’s wife car , the front wheels are stock with a spacer and the rear were modified

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This is the 200sx wheel and a picture of them on John Williams 510 wagon (20mm spacers I believe he told me)

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An finally here’s a pic of the TR6 wheels on a Roadster and what they look like with mooncaps on a MGB

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Hope this helps

[spl310]

someone had found some chrome aftermarket wheels it came and 15in and fit the roadster and had little baby moon center hubcaps they really sweet but I don't remember who it was

[Pjackb]

someone had found some chrome aftermarket wheels it came and 15in and fit the roadster and had little baby moon center hubcaps they really sweet but I don't remember who it was

You’re probably referring to the US Steel Smoothie series they make them in a 15x6 with a perfect offset for the Roadster You can get them either full chrome or with painted centres
They look awesome the problem is they weight a ton , the 15x6 are 25lbs a piece

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[spl310]

Pjackb, no, they had slots like a stock wheel and the hubcaps had some line details.

[Pjackb]

Hmmm. very curious what they are,

I wanted to run a 15” stock looking wheel with whitewalls so I researched this subject ad nauseam , lol
I know I have seen some 4x100 that could work but didn’t really consider them as most were smaller Center bore and needed to be enlarged

[spl310]

They were a chrome rally wheel. The number of slots was reduced, but with the center caps, it looks pretty darned close.

[Pjackb]

Did it look something like this one ?

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Or that one ?

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[spl310]

The second one

[GoldHawg]

It looks like the 200SX wheel would work fine by taking the three mounting tabs off the stock wheels (or fabbing something similar) and welding onto the 200SX wheel for the center moon cap. Alternatively I didn't know if I could just use the centers off the stock wheels and have them pressed into a 15X6 steel wheel hoop. I had 15X8 SSIII Oldsmobile wheels made for me by a guy in Iowa so I could fit 275 60 15 tires on my Cutlass, and he said the 14 and 15 Olds SSIII wheel centers were the same; he simply got 14" wheels (common) and cut out the center and welded in 15 wheel hoops. I am very happy with how it turned out, and wondered if we could do the same on the Datsun wheels. The best part was he could make the backspacing whatever I wanted to fit my car.

Any idea what the optimal backspacing would be on stock suspension pieces to fit 205 55 15 wheels?

[fj20spl311]

It might be "No Big Deal" if the stock 14" band center is 312mm There are bands in both 14 and 15 with that center diameter.

[GoldHawg]

The center section is just a bit over 12" on the stock wheels. Can you ID source that can handle that size with a wheel hoop?

[Pjackb]

Goldhawg
One thing to think about is that to be able to use the same centres in a 15” would mean the barrel tappers in the middle , in my opinion that would create the same clearance issues for bigger brakes and rotors ( stock wheels will not fit with the larger rotors)

In trying to look for the wheels Sid was referring I may have found another option that could potentially work

These wheels in the pictures below are for a VW Beetle or Kharman Ghia they are available 15x5.5 (or 15x6 from Summit) and offsets vary from +25 to +37 depending on source these could be made to work easily with a 25mm 4x114,3 to 4x130 adapter. The best part is that the distance between the nubs is 9 5/8” which is very close to the Roadster hubcaps and could probably be made to work easily

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[GoldHawg]

Pjackb
Looks like on car-part there are quite a few 200SX wheels still available. Would that still be preferable over the Kharman Ghia, or since you have to have a spacer either way, does it matter?

[Pjackb]

That’s a good question, I guess you’re right it doesn’t really matters and depends if you want to look more stock or run the wider wheels

If I was doing this I would go with the VW wheels because even though they have only 8 slots they would look closer to stock in their design and shape to OEM especially with some Roadster hubcaps, (the 200sx wheel slots are much thinner ),
I would use these with some 195-55-15 or 195-60-15 Whitewalls from Cali-tire (http://callitw.com) To complete the illusion that they’re stock

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