George, Thanks for your comments on tires. 1/2 million miles,
wow, you must may have been around longer than me (73 years old) and
still racing. The tires/wheels on a performance vehicle can make or
break the appearance and performance. My other vehicle is a 72 Chevelle
muscle car, 502 CU + procharger supercharger, 0 - 100 in 6 seconds.
Yea, thats in a straight line on the drag strip. The tires on my
Chevelle are 12 inches wide on the rear, and fill the wheel welds very
nicely, looks good. The 185/15 on my 1970 E-type have 2 inches of spare
space on the outside, so they look puney. I will have more rubber on
the rear, and would like more on the front also. The D-type alloys
can probably be purchased with various backspacing, in order to get
the maximun rubber on the road, for perforance and safety. However, the
cost of the alloys are 540.00 from Barratt. I will check into your
alternate suggestion. Thanks, happy next birthday.

Submitted by dale@ls.net on Fri, 11/05/2010 - 09:32

George, not looking to put hulks on the rear, just a little wider tire. Since I must replace
my rusty wires, the 15 X 6J, being a 1 inch wider wheel should work good with the
proper tire. Would prefer not to eliminate the bump stops, and that is why a wheel
with 1 to 1-1/2 less backspacing may be the proper solution. If the 15 X 6J will work
with just some shaving of the bump stop, OK, if not then perhaps the D-type alloy which
is 6J X 15 with proper backspacing and no modification of the bump stop would be
ideal. Mike at SNG Barratt Is checking on stock and modified backspacing of the
D-Type alloy for me this morning. On a side note, the Jaguar restoration manual I
purchased from JCNA is quite helpful.

Submitted by SE98-32482CJ on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 20:28

Dale an "E" is no Chevelle. You can put a bit of more rubber on the rear as I said--Jaguar did--for competition. On the front you will run to a lot of issues with turns and such. I am not as old as you by a bit but suspect have just had more experience in an E type--all on 185 rubber!

One more thing--when you put these hulks on the rear remove your bump stops--so no big bumps at speed now! Also you will quickly see the trailing arms are an issue--do not cut or trim them--junkyards were full of this example of "engineering" and they will fail and the result is never good. Best of luck.