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I have just purchased a 2012 Express passenger 2500. I am almost finished gutting it. Surprise that I will need to work around side curtain airbags.. Anyways I am thinking 17x8 wheels on it with some A/T tires. Maybe 265's. Thinking about either adding 2" leveling or possibly a lift. I am looking for any advice on wheel specs (backspace, hub bore), ideas for lift, springs (stiff versus standard) and shocks. It is RWD. I probably will not convert this to 4X4 but maybe down the road. This is my first complete build so I plan to to the 4X4 think next time. My wife and I are definitely interested in off road but it will also be a daily driver for us.
I know this a a lot. Any helpful information would be great. Thanks
Hubcentric is ideal but an oversized centre bore is fine. My 2004 3500 has 8-lug American Racing wheels and there is no concern of them moving around despite their large centre bore. I think it has stock 16" sized tires but the wheels stick out a bit up front.
I wouldn't mess with the suspension until the complete fit-up is done. You will also want to go to the scale along the way to manage your axle weights. I don't know what the weight capacity of your van is but I've always considered 1500's as useless and 2500's as borderline when doing a conversion.
I have a 5" lift on the front of my van and 4" on the back which is fine in most cases. When I'm at full weight with a trailer the 2" spacers on top of the spindle lift steal from the uptravel as the rear squats and front rises. This would probably be an issue if you were offroad as well. I went to the big lift because my van is a Roadtrek conversion and is about 5" lower than stock because of the stuff installed under it.
Thanks for the information. I am definitely keeping weight in mind. Not going to be a huge build. After gutting it and building out the interior there should not be too much weight difference. Good call waiting on the suspension work. I like the lift on yours for sure. My express is really basic to start with so it is not so low and I am thinking of just gaining elevation with front leveling and increase wheel and tire size.
17s and larger tires will fit fine. Speedometer will be off close to 4mph when you go 29 tall. 1 ton or booster springs ad close to 4 inches and help with wind and sway I got some huge Sachs gas shocks from a junkyard suburban for $8 ea. Van loves them. Not so fond of gas on front though. I use rancho there,handles rough patches well
I just put 275/45/R20 Blizzaks on mine and I have a 2012 AWD Explorer conversion van. They have a nice ride/look and they perform magically on snow and ice! Barely fits in the garage at 91" tall or so. Put new Blizzak Snow/Ice 275/45/R20 on some nice 20" back rims that came with the van. They look bad-*** and perform like a dream. Just drove through a pretty good blizzard in South Dakota on it's inagural road trip with our family and it performed beautifully with great tires and Stabilitrak AWD! Hardly a scratch on it. This van is so much fun to drive. 135" wheel base Has fog lights that really work well! Super bright!!
Both the Express and the G-van can take a large rear tire. The G-van is limited somewhat in the front. My first one was a POS when I got it so when I put some bigger tires on (because I had them handy) and they did not clear the lower corner of the wheel opening, I just sawzalled off a little bit of it. It was a G30 plain van and the tires had been on a 1-ton Suburban.
My 1991 G20 had an issue where the odometer was visibly inaccurate, so to cure it I went with like 265/75R15s I found, I needed new tires anyways and the cost was not much more. The big fat tires looked good on the back, gave it a little rake, and being Firestone Winterforce tires made it about unstoppable in the snow. I went up to a parking lot that had not been plowed and purposely tried to fishtail it around to see how they handled and I had a really hard time getting it to slide at all. The rims were just stock rallys painted black with the caps and some vintage trim rings from a swap meet. Looked really nice.
November 3rd, 2020, 1:09 PM
Wheel options for conversion build
Anyways I am thinking 17x8 wheels on it with some A/T tires. Maybe 265's. Thinking about either adding 2" leveling or possibly a lift. I am looking for any advice on wheel specs (backspace, hub bore), ideas for lift, springs (stiff versus standard) and shocks. It is RWD. I probably will not convert this to 4X4 but maybe down the road. This is my first complete build so I plan to to the 4X4 think next time. My wife and I are definitely interested in off road but it will also be a daily driver for us.
