Hot Rods How wide is too wide???

61 Bel Air Stock eliminator build. Without pushing the clearance issues, how wide a rim, and what size drag slick can you put under a 61? Not real familiar with x frames, I've been told a 61 has less clearance than most of the 59-64 cars. Any input appreciated.

 

these fit pretty nice, they're not very big, though.

9.00/28.5-15

Wheels are Cragar GT 15x6



Of course you need to measure YOUR car, because they're not all the same!

 

HOW WIDE IS TOO WIDE??? cars or women?

 

Is she knocking **** off the end tables to wide?

 

With a stock width rear end you can stuff a 8" rally (4" backspace was typical stock rally) in there. Have to let the rear end droop to get the wheel off, have to do it with 7s as well. . Depending on the backspace you might have to roll/trim the inner wheel lip a little on the 8's.

 

Sounds like a fun build.
What engine combo? and what is the cl*** index?

 

215/283 with a metric 200. Ran Jerico 4 speeds in the past, but getting to old to want to pull trans and do clutch adjusts and maintenance,, taking the easy way out this time, I'm getting old and lazy. Not a fan of automatics, but this is my first for an X frame,, not planing on many if any NHRA Divisional and National Events anymore. Maybe the Meltdown Drags, MoKan, etc, less work, more fun. Legal NHRA P and Q/SA

 

"Gotta say, those old Firestones appear to be in pretty good shape,, gotta be 25 or 30 years old I would think,,look good."

 

heh...they were old and obsolete when I got them almost 30 years ago, and even more so when I sold them about 15 years ago!

 

Don't know iffen this'll help, (just in case '61s aren't different from '59s for rear wheelwell-tire-width-availability), but in the mid 70's I had a '59 Bel Air(post-2dr), & put G60/15s on ET4 "mags" all around, same backspacing. Don't have the #s anymore, but it took a little bit of figuring to use stock unaltered/non-spl-order ET4s. I did find that if I was real careful, I could've gotten H60/15s in the back, w/o rolling the fender lips. But I wanted to be able to rotate tires. As an aside, the tires were raised-letter "Hallmark" brand(carried & sold by the "speed"shop, which I thought absolutely hilarious, but they had real good traction & road-life.
FWIW.
Marcus...

 

Remembering buddies who used to have to unbolt the shock and put a bottle jack between the axle and the frame along with deflating the tire to get a tire on or off That body style it all depends on how much fight to do it you are willing to do.

Stock cl***es in those days were limited to a 7 inch slick of they were allowed in the cl*** and those pretty well filled up the wheel well.

 

... And I ran high 9s on a 7 inch slick with Plan II