Factory Five Racing Mk1 Roadster(Cobra replica)

That's extremely weird and I'm not sure i like the look of that from a strength/stress standpoint.  From a distance those wheels look great, but...

Those 10" rears with tall and fat tires should make the rear look right.  Those front wheels may have been welded like that for a custom offset that you probably don't need.  Maybe mount them up and see what offset you can get away with and have a wheel shop remove and re-weld the centers to the barrel.

The problem in finding used wheels was the backspace requirements. The front wheels on the car are 8" width with 5.25" backspace or +19 offset. Vintage Wheels has a set for the car that are 8" wide with a 5" backspace. These are only 7" wide and have a 4.75" backspace. It's more the positive offset/ front spacing. The wheels on the car are 2.75", vintage are 3" and the new/used ones I just received are 2.25". The current ones on the car sit just right on the car and I may need to play with a small spacer to get it to sit correctly. We shall see after getting tires mounted.

The rears are more of a fitment concern. The current wheels are 9" with 6" backspace(+25mm offset), Vintage wheels offers a 9.5" with 5.75" (+12mm offset) and the new/used ones are 10" with 6.25" backspace(+19mm offset). The current wheels have about 1/2" of clearance to the quad shocks, so the additional 0.25" backspace will make it pretty close. The more positive offset of 0.75" will bring the tire more flush with the flare. It currently sits in about an inch, so mounting the correct size tire will be tricky.

Here's a picture of the front and in the back, blurred out, you can sort of see how much more room I have.

Since the wheels came from Factory Five and have been installed on a track car for years, they should fit and be more than strong enough to drive for ice cream. 
 

Ummm, ditch the quad shocks, if you get wheel hop there are many other solutions to that problem.   I don't think anyone keeps those.

The heavy dogbone on a Fox 8.8 was there to prevent busted output housings from reverse wheel hop.  Ford knew these would get abused.

Do you put anything in their place or just remove them? Sorry, not a Ford foxbody guy. No burnouts so no wheel hop in this cars future under our ownership. 

Since my last post, things have been slow, but trying to find wheels for this thing without buying new($$$), isn't easy. Luckily I went from no "Halibrand looking" wheels to 2 sets! I had a very nice gentleman from Rehoboth Beach, DE reach out to me about a set of wheels he had and would be getting rid of shortly. He was replacing his existing 16" wheels with real "pin-drive" 17's and new tires. I made the 4 hour drive down this Tuesday and picked up his old 16" wheels and 24 year old tires. I also had ordered 5-lug rear axles, 5-lug rear drums and Lincoln Continental front 5-lug rotors, which are the easy way to convert the front over. Luckily an axle swap on a Ford 8.8 rear isn't very difficult. What is difficult is doing it on the floor at my house, in the garage during a heatwave. It hit 96* today and the inside of the garage wasn't far behind. The lift at the shop would have cut the time by 2/3rd's, but that's another story and sore subject. Anyway, the rear end is done, axles swapped, brake drums painted and installed, brakes adjusted and the diff fluid filled. Tomorrow I will throw on the front rotors, new brake pads and install the 16" wheels to check fitment and clearances.

Hopefully pix tomorrow......

Those look awesome.  
 

I really think moving the axle back should be next on the list!

So after a long night last evening and a long HOT day today, I was able to get everything done and the wheels on the car. Whoever said that wheels don't matter on a car doesn't know their @$$ from their collarbone. For those of us that know that the correct set of wheels absolutely makes the car, here's proof. Now I won't mind driving it and taking her for rides. Even Jen said that now the car looks right. Bodhi approves as well. 
 

Now I need to get the correct size tires for either the 16's that are currently pictured or the 15's that are also here.

Here's a closer-up picture of the rear wheel/tire and their place in the wheel opening. Hopefully with a taller sidewall tire, it will fill the opening more and the off-centering won't be as obvious. Actually in this picture it isn't near as noticeable.

That looks great.

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

Amazing transformation those wheels made to the look of the car.  Two solid thumbs up  

Excellent!

I'm really jealous. I need more Cobra in my life. 

Looks great with the new wheels and the direct shot of the back wheel doesn't look like you need to move the axle to me.

I have a buddy with a Backdraft Cobra, Roush 347R with 450hp, it's a handful when driven angry. Originally had silver wheels but needed some pop, we went gold. 

So I finished it up on Saturday mid-afternoon and was confident that it should be good to take for a test drive on Sunday morning. Unfortunately we had a family commitment Saturday later afternoon which would keep us out until the evening. I woke up Sunday, went out to the garage and looked under it to see if there were any fluid leaks. Much to my surprise, nothing on the floor! I knew there was a Cars & Coffee event about 20 miles away in a cute little upscale town, so we decided to take it for a drive and see if it would make it. This is only the second time we are driving the car and the farthest trip so far. I had my brother on notice with a truck and trailer just in case. My skepticism has nothing to do with the quality of the build or the gentleman who built it, it was for the work I did and  the age of the tires we would be driving on.
 

Now for the honest part of the story. We didn't make it out of the area in front of the house. I backed it out of the garage, turning to do a K-turn and head up the drive when the steering binds up. I immediately stop, back up a few inches, shut the car off and jump out to have a quick look. These 16" wheels, at near full steering lock, make contact with the lower a-arms. I'm thinking it's because of the deeper backspacing compared to the 17's that the car came with. Not a huge deal and I felt comfortable enough setting out with her for our drive. 
 

It was about a 40 minute drive through the countryside to get to the event. Uneventful getting there and some interesting vehicles showed up. When leaving, I turned a bit too far to the right to get out of the lot and felt the wheel contacting the a-arm again. My bad! We made it home with no issues, so I will now look at the steering interference issue and what can be done to fix the problem. 
 

The car drives nicely even if we only topped-out at 54mph on the journey. No stumbling, it idles well, starts easily and doesn't mind sitting for a while at a stop sign waiting for traffic to clear. No complaints at all.

I'm wondering if longer wheel studs and a 1/4" spacer would cure the issue or possibly swapping out the lower control arms for aftermarket tubular ones might gain me more clearance. 

I just spoke with the builder/previous owner and explained the issue. Apparently you can buy limiting spacers that go on the rack and should cure my problem. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but this might just be a simple $40 fix! They're ordered from my local Ford dealer and might just be here tomorrow. 

Well, when one thing gets fixed, another needs attention. First, the good. I picked up the steering rack limiting washers that were ordered from the local Ford dealer. $28 and the steering issue is fixed! I didn't even know these things existed, so it was a good phone call to the previous owner and quick fix. I installed the washers, threw the wheels & tires back on, turned the steering from full-lock to full-lock and made sure there was adequate clearance. There was, so I grabbed a jack and slid it under to get the car off the jack stands. When I looked under to set the jack, there was a good size puddle under the car! Damnit! I opened the hood and the power steering pump apparently puked all over. Riddle me this, is it because I turned the steering wheel with the car shut off? I've done hundreds of alignments and never had this issue, so why now? Maybe it was way overfilled? I honestly never looked, so I just need to put it behind me, clean up, fire the car up, cycle the steering back-and-forth a few times and recheck the PS fluid level. There's a bunch of fluid to clean up from the floor, all over the engine and frame, but since it was 9:30 last night when I finished up, I quit for the night. I'll get on it tonite after dinner...........