Went and talked to my friends at the machine shop, the ones doing my driveshaft, and they said they do that kinda stuff all the time...

You just drill 4 new holes in the rotor and you can weld the olds ones if you want to... No big deal... He said hed be interested in doing them, I told him hed probally get a shitload of people wanting it done. Im gonna take him an old one and see what the price is...

Should I shoot for 4X114.3? Isnt that what the _SE is?

 

**** Mike, Go for the 5 LUG!!

 

is that safe?

 

it's technically 4.5" if you want to make life easier on your machinist

A friend of mine did this on his street rod truck... he swapped a T-bird IRS under his (mostly fiberglass ) '55 Chevy pickup. He already had Chevy-pattern wheels ('79-83 Monte Carlo front rotors will swap right on to a Mustang II spindle!) so he pulled the hubs off of the IRS and sent 'em to a buddy of his to plug and redrill to 5 on 4.75" (was 5 on 4 1/4", T-birds had real oddball bolt patterns like the Taurus).

The rear rotors and drums do not locate radially off of the lug nuts, they use the hub itself (RX-7 use the outside diameter, T-bird use the hub snout) so the lug holes for the rotor/drum do not need to be precise - they can be done by hand. They're held from rotating by the clamping load of the wheel bolted down so that's no problem either.

BTW - Keep in mind that GSL-SE have the hub surface 15mm further outboard than 12A cars, which is why GSL-SE wheels have 40mm offset and 12A cars have 25mm. The upshot of this is that you most likely couldn't use wheels designed for the GSL-SE. Fortunately, 4x4.5" is one of the most common bolt patterns known to man...

Also BTW - I have pics of the truck undergoing the swap, they're blurry because my camera was starting to crap out. He says it rides very nice It took him about 2 weeks to do the swap, from getting the subframe from the junkyard to driving the truck back out of the shop.

 

FWIW, the offset is what you're going to be up against here. You can change the bolt pattern to whatever you want, but you might still have some issue finding a 25mm offset.

I know that the most common offsets for 4x114.3 are 35,38,40,and 43, with 40 & 43 totalling most of them.

You would probably be best off trying to find a common car that has a low offset wheel. Granted, I don't know of any off the top of my head. Most of the wheel manufacturers make a certain size and offset, then drill to suit. Finding a 16x7 4x114.3 or 5x114.3 with a 25mm offset is probably going to be even worse than finding 4x110...

Do some shopping around to find something that will get you 4x110 guys in a better place, not a worse one.

 

You can find 25mm offset. Many Mustangs use that offset. If you can't find 25mm offset.....


... of course that would require 4x4.25" bolt pattern

Of course, Diamond makes 15" racing wheels for 4x4.25 AND 4x4.5" in practically any backspacing you want. Of course, they also make 'em in 4x110....

 

exactly... if you have to go to a custom place, you didn't gain anything....

I didn't know mustangs were 25mm though. good to know. (I just said off the top of my head, right? I just know most of the imprt crap, and some GM)

 

Life ain't safe every day you get out of bed...no worries, mon...

 

I think you should get them redone to the same spec as a honda civic! Do you know how many rims are out there for that thing...mon!

 

I thought about that...But decided to just get wheels for my 4x110 for now until I can afford it later (hell, I cant afford it now) .

~T.J.

 

I don't know if Mustangs are 25mm from factory. They have all sorts of different offset wheels depending on which brakes they have, what year the car was, etc. And that's not even getting INTO aftermarket stuff

But 25mm offset wheels are not hard to find.

We have it SO SIMPLE in comparison...

 

Im probally gonna use a 8 3/4 ford rear or something equilavent with a 4 lug pattern... I need to know something so it dont look stupid, I want to get matching wheels, until I go to the drag strip and put my slicks on

 

don't worry, you already need some info here

8 3/4 is a MOPAR rear, not a Ford. Common Fords are 8" and 9" (similar design to ours - bearing-retained axles and the 3rd member drops out as a unit) and these were replaced by 7.5" and 8.8" (junk IMO - axles are C-clip retained so when they break they can slide right out, and they will break easier 'cos the bearing rides directly on the axle surface... also the centersection is part of the rear and the gears load in via a rear inspection cover)

Whew.

 

How about a ford 9" rear with a 5 lug pattern. Then up front, upgrade to the 4 spot calipers from a series 5 TII, with the same 5 lug pattern. While installing the diff get it made up to the same offset as the front. You'll have much greater choice of wheels then. You'll also have big brakes at the front and a diff that will never brake. It's win-win.

 

Not easy at all to use 2nd-gen hubs/rotors on a 1st-gen strut. (All 4-pot calipers/rotors from 2nd-gens are the same, S4/S5 and turbo/non turbo...) Need to make BEARING adapters... ugh.

 

Admittedly, I'm not sure on the details on the conversion, but a lot of cars do it down under. From what I understand (this is from someone doing the upgrade themselves on a budget) you can machine the stock hub/disc down to just a hub, then attach a suitable disc to that. Fabricate a backing plate to hold the calipers and presto your done.

Alternatively, you can get workshops to do it, for somewhere around $1300Aus.

As I say though, I'm not sure on the details, but once this person I mention has finished he's going to share the method, for others to use.

 

Hmm. They machine the 1st-gen's hub to permit the 2nd-gen rotor to fit on it? Interesting.

 

Something like that. Like I said, I don't really know all that much about it. I'm just waiting to see some results.

Bigger brakes are a good thing after engine conversions, especially those involving turbos.

 

yeah I know, its never ending

 

You know, I've confused myself with the above posts. If you machine the 1st gen hubs down you still have 4x110, so you do need to somehow use 2nd gen discs/hubs. I know one person going for the machining option so he can keep his wheels, and another person who has done the entire swap to 5 lug on his RX4.

I'm just confusing myself too much.

 

Can I get this guys email addy so I can find out exactly what all he did for this 5 lug swap?

 

You know, I don't know if he even has an email addy. I'll ask him though. He's gonna be putting a new clutch in my car soon, so I'll talk to him sometime in the next week, if ya don't mind waiting.

PS. His RX4 is being built as a drag car.

 

go with a 1988 "or similar year" mustang rear

it is 4 bolt lug pattern
then just upgrade the front to gsl-se

then your all set

and i also thought that mustang rims fit on gsl-se suspension

and older escort gt

 

bolt pattern is the same, do not know about the offset.

 

The Mustangs have 4 on 4.25" which is NOT GSL-SE pattern. Also, '88 or so might still have the awful 7.5" rearend. If not then it has the 8.8" rearend which still sucks.