Wheel Spacers?

[Lev]

Does anyone know if they are illegal or a really bad idea, or is there a better way to do it?

Pulled my rims off tonight and noticed ET40 stamped on the inside, so I'm assuming 5mm spacers are required to return back to where their supposed to be.

I want to do it properly. I've heard of the wheel bolts busting because of the spacers, scary, don't know if its true though.

Any advice please

[JBT]

I guess if you use a 5mm spacer there will be 5mm less stud thread for the wheel nut to grip and the wheel mass is being taken further outboard on the stud which may cause it to fail - not a good idea. Legal or not, I wouldn't have them.

[Lev]

Doh! I'm going the wrong way, if I want 45mm offset I need to have the wheel machined or replace the wheels. Bigger offset should reduce the track - not the other way around. Must be getting old.

This is good however as these wheel spacers sound dodgy.

[Sheck]

ET40 stamped on the inside, so I'm assuming 5mm spacers are required to return back to where their supposed to be.

I dont get it? do you mean you want to return them to 45mm offset??
Cause a 5mm spacer will make the wheels a 35mm offset, this will look better but its far from stock?
Sorry if this didnt help but the wording has got me a little confused.

I'm running spacers on the front of mine, a pair of 5 or 6mm spacers on each side actually but i'll be taking one of them off today from each side. It's just a little too dodge running 10-12mm spacing on each side, but a 300zx we got from japan was running this set up for god knows how long they were on for. Didnt look like there was any damage done to the studs or wheels, but a stress fracture would be hard to find unless you got an x-ray machine.

If i was to run more than 5mm spacer i would definately get a bolt on set which would start at 20mm or so but there are soo many people running 5mm spacers you wouldnt think that they all fail.
I say use at your own risk, not much help i know but at least theres a little bit of info to help..

Dave

Correction turned out to be 2x3mm so a total of 6mm on each side - i was way off hahahah

[Sheck]

hahaha oops beat me too it

[Garry]

I'm pretty sure the are illegal in NSW. If you dont use the bolt on ones you also loose the ability to locate the wheel correctly on the central locating spigot thingo creating an out of round condition causing wheel shimmy.

[adamjp]

Wheel spacers WILL cause the rim to lose contact with the hub collar. This is bad as the weight of the car will then be supported by the studs. The wheel studs are only to hold the rim against the hub, the hub centric wheels used in cars today hold the weight of the car on the hub collar.

This is why you buy hub centric adapter rings when you get aftermarket rims. They cost $5-6 each and are usually made of high density plastic.

Apart from wheel shimmy, without rim to collar contact, you will end up with a wheel that has the car's weight supported only by 4 fairly thin steel bolts under stress in a direction that they were never designed to operate. They stand a better chance of shearing or stretching. This comes under the category of BAD.

The wheel spacer phenomenon comes from the stupid Japanese racing style called drift racing. You must have flares to be a rice boy, therefore the rims must fill your guards. But if you actually put 10" rims on the car, the diff will snap when you start to burn rubber, so you space your 7" rims out so they fill the guards and you don't snap the diff, axles, etc. But you get a shimmy and run the risk of having a wheel come off - great.

[Sheck]

get your hand off it mate, spacers have been round longer that drift, the drift people your abusing actually have proper wheels (10-12" wide), its ricers, wannabe's and others that do it for the reasons you so delicately put it.
If you havent really tried it (drift) and know how much skill is actually involved to do it, then dont knock it so much. If you dont like it fair enough, but stop cr*ping on about how bad it is.

Most people i know of use spacers so their new rims can clear their brakes. (wrong spoke design, or wrong offset).

Yes they arent good for the resons people have said.
But many people use them any way, your choice.

Dave

[irwin83r]

where can u get hub centric adapter rings?

[Babalouie]

where can u get hub centric adapter rings?

Any good wheel/tyre shop. Mullins Wheels make the plastic ones that are on my car now.

[rain902]

from CAMS manual 2005

schedule E wheels and tyres

6-12
wheel spacers
any spacer/track extender fixed between the wheel and its corresponding hub must be either affixed to the wheel or hub, or located to prevent its movement relative to the hub or wheel.

[adamjp]

Firstly, Dave - calm down. I never knocked the skill involved in drift. I think of it similar to WWF 'wrestling' or a fistfight in footy. Very showy, good entertainment, but not what is normally considered the pure form of the sport. My opinion may differ from yours, but please do not consider that I underestimate the skill required to keep a car on the road (around corners) when the two back wheels are usually driving hard in a direction different to the one you want to go in.

You are right, rice boys and wannabes are the main users of spacers, in fact I know I stated that?

You must have flares to be a rice boy, therefore...

As it happens, I was waiting at the local takeaway on Sunday night and picked up a recent copy of Import Performance to flick through. It had an article on wheel spacers, trying to help people understand what happens when you put them on your car. They were talking BIG spacers 1" (25mm) kinds of sizes. Not once did they mention the hub collar, or anything to do with supporting the weight of the car. In their opinion the main reason that you put spacers on was to fit deep dish rims and still clear the inside of the wheel from your suspension, not the brake system. Apparently deep dish it is THE look from Japan, accentuated by fitment of smaller tyres than the rim is designed for so the tyre sort-of leans inward from the rim edge.

Interestingly, elsewhere in the magazine was an advert for spacers that made a point of the fact that they were better than most as they were available with a hub collar.

[Babalouie]

The biggest bolt-on spacer I ever saw was in Japan and it was 40mm on an NA8 with these flares:



The wheels were 15x7in +35 offset Enkei Tarmacs. Looked quite funny with the brake caliper about 6inches inboard of the wheel spokes

[CT]

We use them on the race cars - summise what you will.

[Sheck]

Yea i did go a little rank, sorry, but i'm sick of people bagging it out soo much and not recognising the skill (espesially on this forum). The few video's of cuircut racing from members here i've seen shows me quite clearly that they dont have the skill to drift (ie car starts to spin and there is no/little attempt to correct it and a spin occurs).

Sure it's not a race, but it is a sport, extream or otherwise, just like any other that doesnt require a time to be beaten. I'm not saying its better either, cuircut still rules, but drift is waaayyy more fun. And a car set up for either drift or cuircut can do both.

It requires alot of feel and control for the car to drift, doing both drift and race would improve your cuircut racing skills much more than cuircut alone. Just look at the pro drifters, they are all cuircut racers (JGTC) and most are very high level. And you got the backstreet drifters comming in very close, at least in the street car class (ie dont have massive amounts of money poured into the car and little to no sponsors compared to the pro class. And this street car class is what alot of the pro drivers are going into cause they are sick of spending all their money for the pro class) If that doesnt say skill i dont know what does.

Ending that rant..

As for the spacers, i dont think they are that bad, your saying all that force on small bits of metal which arent designed to handle that force. I say the force required to sheer one of those bolts is huge (ie not little weak metal things) and when you look at the hub collar this is the weak little bit of metal. (some of the engineers on this forum, if there are any, would be able to tell us sheering force and all that).

Sure MX's are hub centric, but there is little chance of Mazda making the studs soo weak as to be able to sheer off when the hub collars arent used. How many people here dont use them?? I'd say alot of ppl with aftermarket wheels dont have them.
And what about cars which are lug centric, i doubt their studs would sheer off.

Ok spacers would put this weight out a little further (i doubt any more than 8mm for non-bolt on) but i dont think that this would affect it so much as to cause studs to sheer off. And bolt on spacers wouls be perfectly safe, its basically just getting a lower offset wheel.

And as for the biggest users of spacers (non-bolt on) would have to be ppl with worng offset or wrong spoke design on their wheels not clearing the brakes (ie 4/6 piston calipers on front and 2/4 on rear). DRifters using spacers to clear suspension yes this is true but only when they have wrong offset wheels (ie not availible in correct offset). Oh and its because they have much more lock then standard, this is a problem i would have if i was running the stock 45mm offset because of the tie rod spacers i made, not because of the wrong offset for the given car.

I dont know..... thats just my thoughts make of it what you will, and please add/contradict it the more info/opinions the better.

Dave