New wheels for the new truck: 17" Method 709 wheels +25 offset

[stemplar]

17’s? Which tires did you go with?

I have Nokian Outpost nAT's mounted on my 703's for Spring through Fall, and snow tires on my stock rims for winter. I'd hoped the Nokians would be good enough that I didn't need a snow tire, but even the best at/all-weather tire can't compete with a good snow tire. More photos on this thread about the tires and wheels I bought: https://www.ranger6g.com/forum/threads/method-703-35mm-255-75r17-tires-on-stock-lariat-fx4.17712/

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[Lion77]

705s going on my SGM RR tomorrow

 

[Lion77]

 

[Michael Constant]

Wanted something other than black so went with Machined Method 709s. 17s +25 offset

Are the center caps

Wanted something other than black so went with Machined Method 709s. 17s +25 offset

How secure are the center caps, do they come off easily?

 

[Arsenall11]

I too was a little tired of black wheels.

 

[BeachRaptor]

ET35 (+35mm). GOAT recommends no greater than P35~P40 offset (P is positive) for proper tire clearance even with lifts, especially when running larger tires. +25 works, but most will have to do some modification if they intent to fully flex it out and you absolutely will either need to modify the fender flares / liners at full compression OR use strut spacers when running larger tires.

Some people don't do that, they mostly drive on roads or lighter dirt trails, so they don't need the full articulation or clearance for jumping. You can get away with some stuff if your use is limited, but if you fully utilize the suspension to its limits...+35 is about as far as you can go without having to cut stuff underneath.

Lion77 I have a question for you. Who is GOAT and when they recommend no more than +35mm offset for proper clearance, what clearance are they talking about? Is it the vertical clearance from the top of the tire to the wheel well fender flares, or clearance from the front and back crash bars? Or both? Thank you in advance.

 

[DriftJuice]

Are the center caps
How secure are the center caps, do they come off easily?

They're on there good. Can't even turn them and the only way to get them off without possible damage is by taking off the wheel

 

[Lion77]

Lion77 I have a question for you. Who is GOAT and when they recommend no more than +35mm offset for proper clearance, what clearance are they talking about? Is it the vertical clearance from the top of the tire to the wheel well fender flares, or clearance from the front and back crash bars? Or both? Thank you in advance.

GOAT off-road is an Australian vendor that has worked a lot of with the suspension since 2022 when the RR was released there. They have a very extensive article on the Fox Live Valve suspension for the RR and how to lift it without adversely affecting the tuning of the live valve shocks (ride zones) so you get proper damping rates at different droop heights throughout the travel.

The Ultimate Guide to Lifting Your Ranger Raptor

They are active on this forum if you look over in the suspension section. There are multiple areas of clearance.

1. Turning (outer tire edge clearance to crash bars in front / rear of wheel well, mudflaps and fender).

2. Compression, larger tires will travel further up into the wheel well due to larger diameter, a strut spacer moves the strut down to compensate for added tire diameter.

3. Geometry, if you are lifting more than 1", it's highly recommended to get a modified UCA for correct the geometry. You may also need to change the front diff height to get proper CV joint angles. Some people can get ok alignment with 2" front lift, but it's not ideal without a UCA. Usually, 1" there's enough adjustment to get proper alignment.

Wheel off-set pushes the wheels in our out, increasing or decreasing their scrub radius. A more negative off-set (closer to 0) is very common with aftermarket, GOAT has found that the ideal range is about +35 to +45 for running larger tires, you want to move the wheel out just enough to clear the extra tire width, but you don't want to add large amounts of scrub radius or push the tire out too far as it requires more fender trimming for clearance a full compression. For off-road, you really don't want a lot of scrub because over rough terrain your going to have too much steering feedback pulling the truck left or right with every bump. The +35 to +45 range isn't a significant increase in scrub (very mild), but enough to clear wider 315/70R17 tires.

There are some folks who used +25mm offset wheels on stock 285/70R17 tires who reported rubbing even with stock tires using that wide of an off set in the dunes in the UAE. I've not seen anyone report any clearance issues with +30 or larger off-set ranges. Also note that Ford sells Bronco's with wheel ranges from +55 up to +30 off-sets, the Bronco's use the same hub bearings / bore as the Ranger, so I would say that is also a safe off-set range for maintaining wheel bearing durability long-term (some people dont' care and are willing to replace bearings more frequently or maybe they drive very little so they can accept higher wear rates).

If you have a Raptor Road Queen or Mall Crawler that you don't really off-road in, all you need to worry about is clearance during turning lock to lock, but if you off-road and flex it out (articulate) or jump it (compression), you gotta have proper clearance or you'll trash the fenders / body.

Personally, I think the IDEAL solution for larger tires isn't lifting via strut spacers / UCA's, it's an AFTERMARKET FENDER option (which doesn't currently exist). That way you keep the factory geometry, ride zones and CG. The ~1" gain in minimum ground clearance is also compensated for by the added track width, so there's almost no meaningful effect on CG (width increases proportionally to height, while CG isn't directly 1:1 ratio in track width to ride height, for small changes it is close to 1:1).

That's kinda the route the Raptor Race truck took. The class rules do NOT allow aftermarket shocks, but they do allow larger tires, perch collars to compensate for added weight of race gear (cage, fuel, parts etc.) and fender trimming.

The Raptor Race truck used stock shocks with perch collars to adjust pre-load, they ran Method MR207 forged race wheels in a +45mm off-set on BFG K02 315/70R17 tires, so a 34.5 in tire vs. the stock 32.8 in tire (285/70R17). That's 0.8 in of added minimum running ground clearance and it was tailored specifically for Baja, which is rough (not so much Finke, which is smoother). I'll bet my bottom dollar they did some significant fender trimming to get those larger tires to clear the fenders since they couldn't use strut spacers, either that or they sacrificed some suspension travel and used larger bump stops, but I think fender trimming is probably what they did.

 

[BeachRaptor]

GOAT off-road is an Australian vendor that has worked a lot of with the suspension since 2022 when the RR was released there. They have a very extensive article on the Fox Live Valve suspension for the RR and how to lift it without adversely affecting the tuning of the live valve shocks (ride zones) so you get proper damping rates at different droop heights throughout the travel.

The Ultimate Guide to Lifting Your Ranger Raptor

They are active on this forum if you look over in the suspension section. There are multiple areas of clearance.

1. Turning (outer tire edge clearance to crash bars in front / rear of wheel well, mudflaps and fender).

2. Compression, larger tires will travel further up into the wheel well due to larger diameter, a strut spacer moves the strut down to compensate for added tire diameter.

3. Geometry, if you are lifting more than 1", it's highly recommended to get a modified UCA for correct the geometry. You may also need to change the front diff height to get proper CV joint angles. Some people can get ok alignment with 2" front lift, but it's not ideal without a UCA. Usually, 1" there's enough adjustment to get proper alignment.

Wheel off-set pushes the wheels in our out, increasing or decreasing their scrub radius. A more negative off-set (closer to 0) is very common with aftermarket, GOAT has found that the ideal range is about +35 to +45 for running larger tires, you want to move the wheel out just enough to clear the extra tire width, but you don't want to add large amounts of scrub radius or push the tire out too far as it requires more fender trimming for clearance a full compression. For off-road, you really don't want a lot of scrub because over rough terrain your going to have too much steering feedback pulling the truck left or right with every bump. The +35 to +45 range isn't a significant increase in scrub (very mild), but enough to clear wider 315/70R17 tires.

There are some folks who used +25mm offset wheels on stock 285/70R17 tires who reported rubbing even with stock tires using that wide of an off set in the dunes in the UAE. I've not seen anyone report any clearance issues with +30 or larger off-set ranges. Also note that Ford sells Bronco's with wheel ranges from +55 up to +30 off-sets, the Bronco's use the same hub bearings / bore as the Ranger, so I would say that is also a safe off-set range for maintaining wheel bearing durability long-term (some people dont' care and are willing to replace bearings more frequently or maybe they drive very little so they can accept higher wear rates).

If you have a Raptor Road Queen or Mall Crawler that you don't really off-road in, all you need to worry about is clearance during turning lock to lock, but if you off-road and flex it out (articulate) or jump it (compression), you gotta have proper clearance or you'll trash the fenders / body.

Personally, I think the IDEAL solution for larger tires isn't lifting via strut spacers / UCA's, it's an AFTERMARKET FENDER option (which doesn't currently exist). That way you keep the factory geometry, ride zones and CG. The ~1" gain in minimum ground clearance is also compensated for by the added track width, so there's almost no meaningful effect on CG (width increases proportionally to height, while CG isn't directly 1:1 ratio in track width to ride height, for small changes it is close to 1:1).

That's kinda the route the Raptor Race truck took. The class rules do NOT allow aftermarket shocks, but they do allow larger tires, perch collars to compensate for added weight of race gear (cage, fuel, parts etc.) and fender trimming.

The Raptor Race truck used stock shocks with perch collars to adjust pre-load, they ran Method MR207 forged race wheels in a +45mm off-set on BFG K02 315/70R17 tires, so a 34.5 in tire vs. the stock 32.8 in tire (285/70R17). That's 0.8 in of added minimum running ground clearance and it was tailored specifically for Baja, which is rough (not so much Finke, which is smoother). I'll bet my bottom dollar they did some significant fender trimming to get those larger tires to clear the fenders since they couldn't use strut spacers, either that or they sacrificed some suspension travel and used larger bump stops, but I think fender trimming is probably what they did.

Nicely written and full of great info. Thank you very much for taking the time to help! I haven't yet decided on the wheel, but I'm keeping the KO3s that came on it for now.

 

[Michael Constant]

They're on there good. Can't even turn them and the only way to get them off without possible damage is by taking off the wheel

Thank you

 

[Caneman88]

Got my 709's mounted today

 

[cc1999]

Got my 709's mounted today

I really like the bright machined methods. Very sharp !

 

[superj]

Wow, seeing them on a truck in r3al life pics makes them look great.

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