I have a stock 85 c4 corvette, i recently was given four chevy 22" rims and want to know if there is enough clearance for these rims and tires on my car?

First off, welcome to the Corvette Guru!

Wow... 22" wheels on an 85. I'm really going to have to refer that to someone else that deals with wheels more so than I do, but I have seen C4s with 21" wheels at the various car shows I have been a part of. It might work depending on what tire combination you choose. What offset are they?

Welcome!

Oh, no... sorry to say.

I have seen 20" installed, but I would be shocked if 22" would fit. The wheel arches just aren't big enough and with the big wheel, small tire, they look rather, uh, odd. It would also kill your ride quality. The suspension was designed with a certian amount of compliance built into the tire... and a 22" rim won't have that much tire left.

The other thing you need to consider is overall wheel/tire height... lets do math:

Your stock tire is a 255/50/16. This means 255 width (in millimeters), 50% aspect ratio and 16" rim.

What that translates into is that the sidewall is 50% of the tires width. 255 * 50% = 127.5mm sidewall height; which in turn is converted to standard measure by multiplying by 25.4 (mm to inch) to get 5" (and some pointless change).

Now we are getting somewhere! This means that the tire and wheel are 5" + 16" + 5" (tire to rim, rim to rim, rim to tire) = 26" high, overall.

Now to get a 22" rim to do that would leave you with about 2" if sidewall... which means that the first pothole you hit would destroy the tire AND the rim. Seriously.

If you would like my suggestion, sell the 22" rims to someone who can use them and invest in some really nice 17" or 18" rims. I would advise 18" rims, because 17" tires are going to become harder and harder to get in the latest compounds as the manufacturers phase out the smaller tires.

Whether or not they'll fit (doubtful) is only one of the questions you need to ask yourself.

Another is whether or not you'll like the look of them on the car. I suggest you either get somebody who's good with Photoshop to fake them into a photo of your car for you, and/or prop them up alongside of your car and take a look/photo from an angle that places them where they'd be, and see how you like the look. Obviously everybody has their own preferred aesthetic, but a 22" rim on a C4 is not a look that would appeal to me.

A third question is whether or not you can get tires in the size that you'd need for this application.

A fourth question is whether you really want a tire profile that is as low as you'd need it to be in order to fit these rims on this car, if they can be made to fit at all. Installing a tire that has so little sidewall is a heinous bitch of a job (I had a minor wrestling match just installing the 40-series and 45-series Pilot Sports on my LT4 car recently), and each increment lower you go in profile introduces an increasingly harsh ride, as well as less impact tolerance. Super-low profile tires on a street cruiser can be punishing to the occupants, and potholes can be lethal to both the tires and rims.

A 40-series tires is as low as I'd ever want to go on a street-driven vehicle. Going any lower in profile, there's just so little to be gained in terms of handling, and so much to be lost in ride quality and hazard forgiveness, that, IMHO, 40-series is the tipping point in this trade-off, unless it's a track car that won't see road hazards.

Finally, would these rims become a tempting target for thieves who sell into the ghetto markets?

Live well,

SJW

I see size and offset issues.

Are you planning to use the Vette offroad?