MNGT350
Well-Known Member
Read this through again, had a couple questions that popped up.Just realized I hadn’t written-up my tire/wheel change experience (occurred several months ago)
Here’s my slightly different Florida Street Driven approach to Tires/Wheels for my 2016 GT350, this info may be of some value or similar to a “Winter” tire/wheel package for owners in the northern states.
Tires and Wheels (a change for my totally street-driven GT350)
Most of what I’ve read here on the forum concerning changes to GT350 wheels/tires have been:
A. GT350R-Spec Wheels for my GT350
B. Eliminate the staggered setup and go with a squared setup, often requiring spacers for the front.
C. Maybe a 20” wheel/tire package
D. Maybe just a different design wheel for appearance.
E. Maybe a higher quality wheel for track use.
None of that for me.
Street-Driven, being the key phrase here.
No more track time for me, had enough of that in my 39+ years of racing stock cars. Started well over 1,000 feature race events. From here on-out its Highway/Back Road drivin’ street time for me.
My tire/wheel plan was approached kind of backwards
Tires… Actually, the tires are what I selected first
After researching many… “Continental Extreme Contact Sport” became my final decision.
Here’s the backwards part... Size: 255/40/ZR19 Front, 265/40/ZR19 Rear
What! Mustang GT tires on a GT350? Yes…, at least they had the same diameter/circumference.
Wheels... These tires would be stretched too far to use the factory GT350 wheels.
My new wheels would need to be: Front: 19 x 9.5, Rear: 19 x 10”
Retaining a staggered setup, these wheels would end up being 1” narrower than OEM GT350.
“Forgestar CF10 Deep Concave” are the wheels I chose because: I liked the look, liked the price, and liked the caliper clearance.
The next obstacle to figure out was the offset. 1” narrower wheels are going to look sunken-in on the GT350 if I retained the OEM offset of: +30mm front, +62mm rear. Had to research and study my best offset. Tramlining and Scrub Radius was a main concern. I pretty well knew from reading, the Continental Tires were going to practically eliminate the annoying tramlining inherent to the GT350, especially with a narrower tire, but if I brought the wheels out farther to look more like stock, and not sunken-in, this would create more positive scrub radius on the front-end geometry. My concern about the increased scrub radius was this may cause some undesirable input or feel into the braking or steering. After trying to find out what the exact scrub-radius spec was on the GT350, (Asking Ford Performance, and I even ask the Performance Team engineers at a Daytona testing event), never receiving an answer… -Must be a Big F'in guarded secret-.
SEE: https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/figuring-out-scrub-radius.116326/#post-2528705
I estimated myself the stock scrub radius to be ½” to 3/4” positive. So, I decided on wheel offsets of: +16mm front, +48mm rear. This was 14mm or 9/16” out on both front and rear. With an increase to scrub radius of 9/16” positive.
I had to special order these wheels; it took almost 6 weeks to receive them.
First visual impressions:
Perfect offset, From the back view-looking toward the front, along the side, the Poke is totally OEM. The color, still not sure about the gunmetal, I had the gunmetal color wheels on my 2015 GT premium w/50th Anniversary wheels and they looked good, but it was a triple yellow car. With the shadow black car, still wondering if I should have gone with the satin black wheels.
First driving impressions:
The steering: Amazing, absolutely no tramlining, totally gone. And the steering seemed rock solid, with no side effects whatsoever from the increased scrub radius. I was totally satisfied and happy that I now have some 40,000-mile tires to carry me on down the road.
Final Thoughts: Been driving with my new setup for several months now. Can I still take the 270-degree entrance ramp to I-75 at 95MPH… ? Yes, (With no traffic of course)
I am totally satisfied with this setup and not planning on going back with OEM. My original wheels/tires never came within 6” of a curb, the tires still have some mileage left on them. The wheels are mint, still factory mounted/balanced, so I put them up in my tire rack, not sure what I should do with them, I may end up selling them.
WEIGHTS:
Tires: Michelin OEM = 29# Front, 30# Rear, Continental ECS = 26# Front, 27# Rear
Wheels: OEM = 34#, Forgestars = 24#
The New Mounted Tire/Wheel are about 13# lighter each compared with OEM.
COST:
Tires and New TPMS sensors: 1092
Wheels and Lug Nuts: 1448
Balancing: 50
Total Cost = 2590
Test Fitting the Wheels for clearance and offset
Final Stance and Look
40,000 mile life on the Continentals? Boy, I hope that's true because I'm running those as well.
I'm running staggered OEM wheels, with downsized 295/35/19 in back and 285/35/19 in rear. Are you planning on rotating side to side to reach 40,000 or is there no benefit to that?
Also, did you change the front alignment? The recent thread about the track focused camber and inside tire wear on the fronts has me wondering about doing so. Seems like 40K without changing that is overly optimistic.
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