Help Needed w/ Wheel Sizing

[Bucs34]

Hello everyone,

I'm a self admitted wheel noob. I could never wrap my head around figuring out backspacing and offset. Anyways, I am planning a 2" lift with 33x12.5 tires for my 87 Silverado 1/2 ton. I am looking to get some 15x8 wheels as they seem to be better suited to handle the 12.5" wide tire than the 15x7 wheels I currently have. My question is, what offset and backspacing is recommended for a 15x8 wheel on these trucks with a 33x12.5 tire. Also, if anyone wants to post up a picture of the wheels they're running that would be great as well since I am unsure what style wheel to get. Thanks for any and all input!!!

 

[hirschdalechevy]

I dont have any pic's of 8 wide wheels , (I like 10's or wider) but you will be fine with 3.75 or 4" back space. The more backspace you have the less offset you will have.

Backspace = towards the inside of your truck
Offset = towards the outside of your truck

 

[Bucs34]

Thanks for chiming in! Just to add another question to the mix should I go for steel or aluminum / alloy?

 

[77 K20]

Thanks for chiming in! Just to add another question to the mix should I go for steel or aluminum / alloy?

For me it depends on what you will be doing with it. For my truck I use for towing I bought some Dick Cepek aluminum wheels. They were lighter than steel, but had a strong weight rating to them.

For my off-road/work truck I bought steel. I've hit some stuff very hard and have done some light rock crawling with them. Weighs more, but the wheel will just bend and still hopefully hold air instead of crack like an aluminum one could. And if I do happen to damage one they are cheaper to replace than the aluminum ones.

 

[Bucs34]

Thanks for the input! Call me old fashioned but I really want to run a hub centric wheel. Does anyone make reproduction 15x8 rally wheels that accept the oem caps and rings? It seems like everyone in my area wants what I think is crazy money for these wheels. For that matter I would love a set of factory aluminum wheels if they made them in 15x8.

 

[hirschdalechevy]

Never have really looked but I will bet lmc truck or year one , maybe e-bay as well.

I used to have a 72 blazer that I sold and had stockton wheel widen them to 12" , painted them the same blue as the blazer with the chevy hub cap deep inside , they looked pretty cool

 

[Bucs34]

I looked into LMC and so on and the rallys seemed to be the same price as luminum wheels so I went aluminum instead. I got the American Racing Baja since they seemed to be as close of a match to the factory aluminum wheels that I had.