Ok so I'm getting into this offroading thing and I'm feeling the itch to upgrade from my 225/75 Toyo Open country tires.  I have 2" lift and my sidekick is a 4door 1994 with a 5 speed and the 16 valve motor.

I'm thinking of going with some Maxxis buckshot as i am on a tight budget and my local shop has these tires for $155 a peice mounted in a 30x9.50. I would get some  some 15x7 cragar soft 8 wheels from Summit to mount them on.  This brings me to a few questions.

On the wheels, will a 3.75" backspacing be sufficient or should I try to find a wheel with 3" backspacing?

How much of an improvement could I expect with these Maxxis Buckshots over my Toyo AT's?

Any other advice, encouragement or discouragement welcome...

Thanks

Jon

That is going to suck some of the power out of your car for normal driving, but it should be doable. 

  I am running a the buckshots in a 30x10.50x15 and i have been very impressed with this tire. it will tend to slick up in really sticky mud but what tire wont. But as an all around trail tire i have enjoyed it, not to loud on the road and does its job offroad. and they are wearing really nicely.  Hope this helps

I bought a truck that had some new ones on it they would start to howl at about seven mph, the good thing about them all of the animals for three miles ahead of you will be running for their lives so you should not run into them, I took them off about a week later and they are rotting out in the barn some place!

I ran 30X9.5 for years on my 93 2 door and here was some power loss with the 8V.  Unless you need another set of tires, lower gears will do you more good off road, I was constantly slipping the clutch to go slow enough through the rough stuff.  I guess it depends on where and how hard you wheel.  (Looks like mrfuelish has a set of tires he might sell if you are close to him.)  We are also running 30X9.5X15's on Drone637 race car on stock rims.

That is just my delimma.  My Toyos only have about 5k on them so they are basically new.  I just am wishing I went with a little bigger more agressive tires.  i got them before the lift and I was just starting to go offroad so I didn't know where I was going with this. 

I live in West Virginia so there is a lot of mud here that turns the Toyos into slicks.  I am just wondering if the mud tires would make a big enough difference.

For mud a nice set of aggressive MTR's that can clean well is a huge difference over AT's. 

Do you know anyone with a CJ5 that you can borrow the tires off of so you can go on a test run?

   If you are in the mud quite a bit, you may want to go with something a little more aggressive than the maxxis  mudder.

Keep the Toyos for DD and look into these for going mudding(use stock wheels), bottom of page 30x7x15  http://www.intercotire.com/news-article.php?article=1

thanks talonxracer.  What about the non highway service rating.  I mean I have to hit the highway to get to where I'm mudding.

 which  swamper is that?

N-O=I=S=Y, but it's your baby.

   
 From what i have read on the 30x7x15's swampers everyone is having problems with the beads not sealing