It's normal for the front to stick out more than the rear even on a stock truck. My friend put 315/70R17's on his stock 4X4 XLT. We used a 48" level to measure the farthest outboard part of the tire to the vertical centerline of the wheel well opening; on the front the tires stuck out exactly 1" and in the rear the tires were inside the wheel wells 0.9". This was a XLT w/o fender flares. A Lariat/FX4 w/ factory fender flares would probably be perfectly flush in the front and about 2" inside in the rear.

I believe all the 6" lifts that provide axle spacers increase the front track width, so your truck with the RCD kit may be even wider in the front than stock. All of the knuckle kits do not require an axle spacer, but the RCD kit does. The ProComp kit does not use an axle spacer because the new knuckle hub location drops the exact same distance that the axle itself is dropped, so the axles are at the factory angles.

The problem with adding 1/2" spacers to the rear is that your lug studs on the rear hub aren't long enough to use them... you won't get enough thread engagement into the lug nuts. If you want to use spacers in the rear you have to use the type that bolt to the truck studs and then have their own studs to attach the wheel to them... so basically you need 12 lug nuts per wheel. If you use this style, I have been told by a wheel spacer manufacturer that the thinnest spacer you can use on a 2004-2007 F-150 is 1.25" in order to keep the set of lug nuts that attach the spacer to the vehicle under the surface that the wheel will mount to.

 

And there's nothing wrong with bolt on wheel spacers as long as they're quality made with tight tolerances. On our trucks, they're bolted to the truck with six 14mm studs just like the wheels do and then the wheels are bolted to them. I have seen a true class 7 Ranger baja truck jump over a Camaro with 3" thick wheel spacers on all 4 wheels... if those didn't break then you have nothing to worry about.

The only bad thing about wheel spacers is that they cause extra wear on your wheel bearings. However, adding an extra 1.5" of width via wheel spacers is the same as adding an extra 1.5" of width via using a wheel with 1.5" less backspace.

 

I know Rize doesn't increase track width and I don't think CST does either.

 

thanks for the first hand knowledge guys, you guys think, a 1/2" spacer is too much for our lug studs? i read that you just need 7 turns of your lug nuts to be safe, i think ill get custom ones when i get my new wheels and keep you guys updated on results

 

I'm really not sure. Before you go buy wheel spacers, try stacking up 1/2" worth of washers and see how many thread turns you get.

Also, I have a ProComp 6" lift on my truck with 35x12.50 tires and 17x9 w/ 4.5" BS wheels. If you'd like I can measure how far they stick out of the wheel wells in the front so you can compare to your RCD kit. I'd be curious to know the difference myself.

 

sure ill measure the distance, i got a flareside so i have oem flares on the rear and fronts, but i imagine they are the same, but im telling you, just eyeballing it, the fronts are out 1" more than the rears, i hate it, im gonna get wheels with 5.5-6.0" backspacing, i looked at full turn on both sides and in both directions, and i cant see how moving the wheels in an inch can make me rub on anything, ill still have like an inch of clearance at least, just i want the rears too match up a little better. btw awesome suggestion with the washers, ill do that to see what kind of turns with the lugs i get, thanks a bunch guys, gotta travel, cant wait to come back, hopefully troyer gives me some tunes by then, so i can get some pics of my truck for yall