89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[lemons bob]

No spacer necessary. Center bore, lug spacing, back spacing, and offset are all the same. The Alero wheels will be a direct bolt-on.

Same center bore but those rims fit exactly, while the steelies aren't perfectly round which makes them easier to get on and off. In fact in the back had a hard time getting them off and on. Guessing that was just due to the years of rust, a little sanding of the hubs and maybe some wd40 should make it easier though.

We will need new lugs cause we have cheap generic ones that won't work. Also the wheels that were on there the 205/65 r15 are pretty close to rubbing on the front especially with the negative camber we are running. We will be running shorter tires so should be ok. Not sure how the 16's would work since they will probably be 225's and we'd have to do taller sidewalls than we are running now.

Now to just look around to see what kind of deal we can get on 8 of them.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

What size are you looking for.. I can contact a friend of mine to see if he is willing to negotiate on a price..

[lemons bob]

What size are you looking for.. I can contact a friend of mine to see if he is willing to negotiate on a price..

looking for 8 15x6 alero alloy rims. Not particular for the year (2 different styles that are very minor in difference) Don't care if its scratched or someone painted it a stupid color, just as long as you can mount a tire it will hold air and can be balanced.

I found a couple alero's that are being parted out that might have the 15s that I will call about later.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

Will Check...

[lemons bob]

Will Check...

If they aren't local I'm guessing the expensive part may be shipping. In case they need it my zip is 60126

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

He had 1 in stock, and that doesn't help you..

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

Did some searching around... These cars are also known as the Chevy Malibu. I found 12 of these rims on ebay nearish you.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/15-Chevy-Mal...9ae8b7&vxp=mtr
http://www.ebay.com/itm/15-Classic-C...2cff3f&vxp=mtr
http://www.ebay.com/itm/15-Chevy-Mal...4b1cf3&vxp=mtr

If you look thru that guys other auctions, he has quite a few 5x115 rims, some are decently priced.

[JoshB]

Dose it have to alero? I assume all N-body would be the same.
1999–2004 Oldsmobile Alero
1999–2005 Pontiac Grand Am
1997–1999 Oldsmobile Cutlass
1997–2003 Chevrolet Malibu

What about U-body vans?

A car-part.com search for 2000 Grand Am shows 6 in Griffith, IN and 4 in Merrillville, IN all $45 a piece. But If they want a core it could cause a problem.

[lemons bob]

Dose it have to alero? I assume all N-body would be the same.
1999–2004 Oldsmobile Alero
1999–2005 Pontiac Grand Am
1997–1999 Oldsmobile Cutlass
1997–2003 Chevrolet Malibu

What about U-body vans?

A car-part.com search for 2000 Grand Am shows 6 in Griffith, IN and 4 in Merrillville, IN all $45 a piece. But If they want a core it could cause a problem.

FOr test fitting Alero is what we had access to, all N-body should be the same so as long as they are 15x6 we should be ok. I'll have to spend time looking but we want to make sure there is good airflow to help get some of the brake heat out of there which is why we want the alloy and not steelies. Have to find time to look around for them now.

The ebay shop looks good but once you add in shipping it does add to the overall cost, and it is far enough that I'm not sure there would really be any savings to go down there and pick them up and drive them back especially with how gas prices are now.

Also looks like there is a yard in Lockport that has alero, and grandam and a bunch of other wheels with ask price, of course that doesn't mean they have them but I did see them listing an alero for parting out. I might need to give them a call this weekend and see what the prices would be for wheels without tires and see if I can't get a deal for 2 sets of n-body wheels. With them being for Lemons they really don't have to be matching if the deal is good enough.

[Duke George V]

From my sticky thread:

JA2/JM4, 5 x 115:

• C platform cars, 1985-1996. 15 or 16 inches diameter, width 6 inches.
  Buick Electra (FWD) and Park Avenue; Cadillac Deville, Fleetwood (FWD) and Sixty Special (up to '93); Oldsmobile 98.
  Note: I haven't been able to pin down whether the offset is the same for our cars and these full-sizes. Preliminary testing of Silhouette wheels on a '90 Deville say they match.
• H platform cars, 1986-2005? 15 to 17 inches diameter, width up to 7 inches?
  Buick LeSabre; Oldsmobile 88; Pontiac Bonneville.
  Note: Again, I haven't been able to pin down whether the offset is the same for our cars and these full-sizes.
• N platform cars, 1997-2005. 15 and 16 inches diameter, width up to 6.5 inches?.
  Chevrolet Malibu and Classic; Oldsmobile Cutlass ('97-99) and Alero ('99+); Pontiac Grand Am ('99+).
• U platform vans and CUVs, 1990-2005. 14 inches (early) and 15-16 diameter, width 6 inches.
  Buick Rendezvous; Chevrolet Lumina APV and Venture; Oldsmobile Silhouette; Pontiac Aztek and Trans Sport/Montana.
  Note: CUVs are included for completeness. I don't really know if they will fit properly, but they should since they're derived from the vans.
• W platform cars, 1988-2001, 14 to 16 inches diameter, width up to 8 inches.
  Buick Regal (up to '96); Chevrolet Lumina (all years) and Monte Carlo ('95-99); Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme; Pontiac Grand Prix (up to '96, some 8" wide, can't recommend).
  
• Non-GM wheels
  Chrysler LH platform, 1993-2004. 15 or 16 inches diameter, width 6 to 7 inches.
  Chrysler Concorde, LHS, New Yorker, 300M; Dodge Intrepid; Eagle Vision.
  IMPORTANT NOTE: These wheels are compatible, but some of the relevant measurements are different. Lug spacing is 5x114.3mm, or 5x4.5". Center bore is 71.3mm. Offset and backspacing are close enough.

[lemons bob]

Looks like we waited to long to find new rims so will be sticking with the 14s for this race. I did use the sharpie paint pens to make the tire white lettered ones now cause you know all the cool a-body's have white letter tires now.

[Burdizzo]

This thread has been enlightening and informative. I am part of a Lemons team that has three races under our belts with a 1996 Century.




Our Achilles Heel with this car is the transmission. It leaked like heck at the first race. The second race, we fixed the leak, but toasted it in short order. The last time it cost a chunk of change to have it rebuilt, mostly the cost of labor to pull it. I am afraid we may have trashed it again last week at Eagles Canyon. We don't have a trans cooler, but I think that would probably be a huge help. We really don't want to keep shucking transmissions in this car. We are not a-body experts, but I understand there is a Getrag 282 5-speed that was put in the Cavaliers in the 1980's. Does it bolt to the 3100, and is it an easy swap?

The tips about the springs are interesting too. Did anyone ever actually try the Accord springs trick? We would really like to stiffen this car up.

More on our team can be seen here...

http://www.mysticlemonracers.com/

[lemons bob]

I saw you guys ran last weekend, and was rooting for you. Not sure where in Texas you are, but A-body's were the only car gm sold in mexico for a while and manuals I think were supposed to be common. If your close to the border you may be able to get a trans and all the parts pretty easily.

on the bonus side sicne they were all sold as chevy you can get confusing chevy century ss logos. I mean look how cool you would look with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvJLMifWxUQ

[Burdizzo]

I am in San Antonio. The rest of the team is in the Austin area. We have some pretty good yards in San Antonio, but I have never been there to look for a-body stuff. Don't know what that selection is like.

[lemons bob]

In Chicago there are always some in the junkyard, and actually I still see a-body's almost everyday on the roads so there were just a lot in this area. However manual I've never seen in a junkyard as they didn't make a lot for the us market. If Mexican market cars are common by you maybe you can find them.

As for the Cavalier trans working. It will bolt on, but Cav's were 5x100 cars which I believe had 27 spline half shafts. Yours is probably a 5x115(from what I was told of your year they were all 5x115) which would be 33 spline halfshafts. There is a berreta that races up in the midwest. They changed over from 5x100 to 5x115 so they wouldn't have to change wheel bearings during the middle of every race, also got massive brakes. They wanted to keep the manual transmission so they ended up having to take apart a the berreta half shafts and some alero halfshafts and then merge them together to get some that work.

So its possible but if you can find a manual trans that is setup to run with the 5x115 wheels you will be way better off.