Hi, basically I have brought a set of 4 old wheels which were apparently off an old kit car and look to be from an old ford?
Anyway they are the correct PCD etc for my sierra based kit car, so for £20 I thought why not!

First impressions, with the tyres on they feel quite a bit lighter than the wheels that are on my INDY currently.
they are R15 at the moment, and considerably wide, almost like my BMW! - to me this seams like overkill?

Anyway the tyres that are on the 4 cheap wheels at the moment are 185x70xR13
However my question is, when I put my cheap wheels on the car they foul the mudguards slightly.
Now the tyres on the cheap wheels are really chunky looking.
So chunky that when I put them up against my current 15's which are on some nice low profiles, the tyres are virtually the same diameter, yet one set are 13' and one set are 15! however the ones with the chunky tyres still manage to foul on the mudguards?
I was thinking of putting some 175x50xr13's on these cheap wheels, as they seem to be a common size.

What are peoples view on this, would it allow the wheels to now fit?

Im thinking some nice 13's would let the car handle better, as they are quite a bit lighter, and that also means less rolling diameter = acceleration?

would this decrease in tyre width really effect the handling much? or would the lighter smaller wheels cancel this out?

Thanks for your time, I hope this makes some sense.

If you want to compare the relative sizes of the wheels/tyres then www.willtheyfit.com gives you a good graphic comparison.

Remeber if you change the wheel diamter (lower profile) then your speedo will be out and as you suggets top speed will be reduced (effectively increases your rear diff ratio).

Here's the difference between 185/70/13 and 175/50/13 all ather things being equal = 16% speedo error -

http://www.willtheyfit.com/index.php?width=185&aspect=70&diameter=13&wheelwidth=6&offset=0&width2=175&aspect2=50&diameter 2=13&wheelwidth2=6&offset2=0

185/60R13 is a common size on sevens. That should work with arches, but compare your current wheel size with link mentioned earlier.

185/60/13 on 6j rims front, 205/60/13 on 7j rims on the rear are perfect.