Hey there, I'm about to mount 17 inch rims on my car and would like to fill the arches with them. I'm getting hubcentric rings as a precaution, but how do they fit with spacers? I'm thinking of using 10mm in the back and 15mm in the front (my friend's done it before on an integra and he says it's better to have a wider track on FWD). Also, will 15mm be a problem for my studs? If so, I would shorten to maybe 10mm - 5mm front and back respectively.

Let me know what you guys think. And by the way, I'm new to the forum. Been stalking around for a while reading up on all kinds of stuff. This is a great place to learn about my Z (had it for two months, and always thinking about making it sweeter).

If you baby your car, and you're not trying to push the wheels out for performance reasons, than you should be OK with 10mm or less, but you will have to change your studs regardless. You need to have a good amount of thread engagement from the nut, and with a 10mm spacer, you lose way more than is safe. I'm not even aware of spacers over 5mm that aren't the bolt-on kind, as that type is typicly used for only gaining clearance for brake calipers. If you're looking at doing it for performance, you should have just bought rims with a lower offset.

so whats the purpose of putting spacers on your wheels?

Moar Candy! LAWL wrote:so whats the purpose of putting spacers on your wheels?

It seems he is trying to achieve a "wider" track.

I would say just go with a 7 or 8 in wide rim with a low offset like previously stated and call it a day. A +35 rim with push the wheel out farther from the hub for a "wider" track also allowing you to clear most big brake upgrades. The only downside that most will say is that a +35 wheel will stick out a little from the front fender, so rolling the fender would be a good idea to do if you go that route.
Personally I think it would be better than putting possible stress on the hub/studs with the spacer if you plan on driving the car hard.

I have 6mm spacers in my rear and when I tried to double them up (12mm) it didn't allow me to thread the lugs on enough to make me feel confortible with it. I am going to get some longer ARP studs from a camaro and use them in my rear to allow for a bigger spacer.



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i dont understand why you would want to use spacers in the first place. like rob said, get the right width and offset wheels and you wont have to worry about using spacers to push the wheels out.

Yeah, was going for the wider track in the back because they stick in too much compared to the fronts. But I haven't met anyone who actually thinks it's a good idea (Fountain Tire and OK Tire are strongly opposed to it. In fact, they say that spacers are now illegal in Canada). So I guess maybe I'll just get a set of 235s next summer instead of the 205s I have on now.

Thanks for the advice.

im not a fan of spacers myself either. i think its a cheap and unsafe way to get the effect people are looking for. im sure you could find a set of wheels that have the right offset and width you want for the rear

^Well then most people would then say why put a wider wheel/tire on the back of a RWD car. So long as you use APR longer studs and good spacers you are fine. Cause keeping the wheels and tires the same size you can rotate and wear them better then just putting them on and leaving them in the same place.

Trey Latham (aka TRD Cav Fire) wrote:^Well then most people would then say why put a wider wheel/tire on the back of a RWD car. So long as you use APR longer studs and good spacers you are fine. Cause keeping the wheels and tires the same size you can rotate and wear them better then just putting them on and leaving them in the same place.

that makes no sense. what does a staggered setup have to do with this and spacers?

Moar Candy! LAWL wrote:

Trey Latham (aka TRD Cav Fire) wrote:^Well then most people would then say why put a wider wheel/tire on the back of a RWD car. So long as you use APR longer studs and good spacers you are fine. Cause keeping the wheels and tires the same size you can rotate and wear them better then just putting them on and leaving them in the same place.

that makes no sense. what does a staggered setup have to do with this and spacers?

Are you dumb? They are using spacers to do a staggered setup! That is plan as day I thought. Since most people would agree that using the spacers is a bad idea doesn't mean you can't make it safe.

Just do it right and get new APR lugs to use with nice set of spacers. Make sure to tourqe then down right, and also check them after a short drive again with a star and then around the outside after on each wheel.

Trey Latham (aka TRD Cav Fire) wrote:

Moar Candy! LAWL wrote:

Trey Latham (aka TRD Cav Fire) wrote:^Well then most people would then say why put a wider wheel/tire on the back of a RWD car. So long as you use APR longer studs and good spacers you are fine. Cause keeping the wheels and tires the same size you can rotate and wear them better then just putting them on and leaving them in the same place.

that makes no sense. what does a staggered setup have to do with this and spacers?

Are you dumb? They are using spacers to do a staggered setup! That is plan as day I thought. Since most people would agree that using the spacers is a bad idea doesn't mean you can't make it safe.

Just do it right and get new APR lugs to use with nice set of spacers. Make sure to tourqe then down right, and also check them after a short drive again with a star and then around the outside after on each wheel.

if your running the same width in the rear, your not running a true staggered setup. i guess im dumb for wanting to do @!#$ right and buy different widths and offsets instead of being cheap and using spacers

I guess I don't do $h!t right since I have SSR GT3's on a J-body with no spacers. Just cause you are using spacers doesn't mean your rims are cheap either. Sometimes spacing out your wheel just 5mm's really can make something look better, and also fit where as before it couldn't. So many VW people have spacers the convert to different bolt patterns. Go tell them they are doing it wrong please!

Yes these are the real deal 3-piece SSR wheels

where did i say your rims are cheap if you use spacers? my point is if you want them to go out farther, order a different offset.

as for your vw question, yes getting hub adaptors not spacers to convert to a different bolt pattern is pretty bad. why not just get ones made for your car?

could you put a spacer behind the rear hub to push it out more, say if you are looking for 10 mm, just get a sheet of steel 10 mm thick, and cut it to shape, and just make sure the bolts are long enough to secure it better? (best to have it machined if you could )

I don't have my cav with me right now so I can't even look to see how this would work, somewhat like the neon rear disk bracket would do, but just to push the wheels out.

I would think that would be safer and look good at the same time.

steve whitehead wrote:could you put a spacer behind the rear hub to push it out more, say if you are looking for 10 mm, just get a sheet of steel 10 mm thick, and cut it to shape, and just make sure the bolts are long enough to secure it better? (best to have it machined if you could )

I don't have my cav with me right now so I can't even look to see how this would work, somewhat like the neon rear disk bracket would do, but just to push the wheels out.

I would think that would be safer and look good at the same time.

This is actually the best way to do it, if you do it right, because you're taking stress off the hub/bearing assembly. Even if you get wheels with low offsets, instead of using spacers, there will be more stress on the bearing assembly because of leverage.

However, if you do something like this, do it right. Don't get cheap steel or aluminum, and don't get anything short of grade 8 bolts.
Make sure they are cut accurately for a snug fit, and make sure the bolts are torqued properly.
But if you're going to go through that trouble, why not just do a disc brake upgrade?

The idea of spacers sounds kinda hairy to me. All-in-all, you're pushing the weight of the car farther out onto the lugs.

Moar Candy! LAWL wrote: my point is if you want them to go out farther, order a different offset.

I think you may be missing the reason people are wanting to use spacers here, it's not because they bought the wrong offset wheels. On our cars, the rear wheels appear to be sunk in much deeper than the front wheel so people want to use spacers just to even up the front and rear wheels. Without spacers you would have to buy different offset wheels for the front and rear to achieve this look. For example, you'd need to use front wheels with a 45mm offset and rear wheels with a 35mm offset to actually make them look even and not all wheels are offered in the exact offset differences people would like.


- 93 mph in the 1/8 mile
Member of J-Body Of Michigan.

If you've ever priced wheels of the same style with a +35mm offset in the rear and +42mm offset for the front, you'll find out that most can't afford those type of rims.
Also, having a wider track in the rear is beneficial in a fwd vehicle as it promotes better turn in and holds your line in a corner much better than most would think in hard cornering. Do some research on suspension dynamics and you'll see this to be true.
I've done some research on this and decided that for me, I'd space the rear by 1 inch or 25mm while keeping the fronts stock.
I have excellent handling with this arrangement and the spacers for the rear actually have their own studs in which your rims will have all of the threads they need to be safe and meet all safety requirements.
The only thing I don't have are hubcentric ring in which I personally don't see the need if the proper lugnut is used but proponents of the hubcentric advocates will argue otherwise.

Here's my setup for those wanting something similar and how it looks.



The spacers are made of T-6061 aluminum with Grade 8 studs as are the nuts used to tie the spacers to the existing wheel studs.
Most will state that the hubcentric rings are needed but for now, I'm keeping it like this as I've had no issues with this setup whatsoever.

Here's some pics of how well this works.
The 16 inch Nexo rims are a +42mm offset on all 4 and did nothing to the fronts as they're about as far out as they're needing to be.




I'll have to admit that I'll be needing to roll the fenders and it's in the project books to do in the very near future.
I'm doing this because this setup is just for now because I do plan on getting the proper sized rims with +35 to +35 offset for the rear while keeping the fronts with +42 offset.
The rims will cost plenty but they'll be ultralight forged units which will be what I'm looking for in the future.

Last, these spacers can be purchased on E-bay if you choose your source wisely. There were alot of products out there but chose the ones I have because of their quality.
$75 bucks for both spacers and I couldn't be happier with them.




Misnblu.com
Newbie member since 1999
Thank you Dave and JBO!

I can't believe that you're trusting your car on those when you are obviously doing some hard driving. I can understand when someone builds a show car with a widebody and uses spacers, when they are babying their car, but if you are building a performance car, that is getting driven hard, even if just on occasion, you are increasing the leverage force on your hubs and your factory studs, even though they are only holding the spacer on, and you are also increasing the number of potential braking points. Now, instead of having the studs that hold your wheels on attached to the hub, you've got a "middle-man" in between them. I don't care if it's all grade 8, and it's 6061, it's still making another separation between your wheel and your car. The lack of hub centricity to them adds to that, because a spacer with a centric ring on it would take a little bit of the force from the studs and transfer it to the hub. Maybe you've been lucky, and maybe you'll continue to be lucky, but this is not something that you should be fooling with if you're an avid driver.

What's the difference if you're going to use a +35 offset rear wheel to bring out the rim to the edge of the wheelwell? You're still applying the same force whether it's with a rim or a spacer.
The pressure is still the same on the hubs either way.
Unless an N-body IRS is used to do the same thing (which will probably be the case with the Cavy) which is to bring out the wheels to the edge of the wheelwell, you'll still have the same hub pressures.
I never said that this was the perfect setup anyway so even though it's what I'm using at the present time, I'll eventually have what I finally want later wth the Cavy.
I do appreciate your concern though and letting other viewers of this post realize what some of the consequences of this could be.
On another note about all this, I've had no trouble with this, and if I encounter any problems with it, I'll be sure to relinquish any advocacy I have with this modification.
A side note, alot of companies are supporting the wheel spacers if they're done correctly. Mackin Industries is one of the premier companies that sell several versions of the wheel spacer.
I understand marketing and wanting to sell a product but for a company this big to sell such product, there must be some legitimacy to it.



Misnblu.com
Newbie member since 1999
Thank you Dave and JBO!

what some people fail to realize is that spacer are used all the time. used by people who drag race, autoX, whatever. i can name atleast 12 people at the track i race that use spacers and they all run under 12 seconds. and name a few who use them for autoX



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Misnblu wrote:What's the difference if you're going to use a +35 offset rear wheel to bring out the rim to the edge of the wheelwell? You're still applying the same force whether it's with a rim or a spacer.
The pressure is still the same on the hubs either way...

You're correct about the force on the hub (I actually said the same thing half way up the page), but the more dangerous part is the force on the lugs, and the fact that if you use a lower offset wheel to do it, you don't have the third component in between the wheel and the hub. The bolt-on spacers are separating the direct connecting clamping force of the lugs going through the hub face and the wheel. (Not sure if I'm articulating this clearly).

Also, as I said, the ones you're using not having the hub centering lip on them is applying more force onto the lugs, because they are not only clamping the wheel on, but they are taking all of the force of driving, instead of some of it being dispersed to the hub.

Quiklilcav wrote:

Misnblu wrote:What's the difference if you're going to use a +35 offset rear wheel to bring out the rim to the edge of the wheelwell? You're still applying the same force whether it's with a rim or a spacer.
The pressure is still the same on the hubs either way...

You're correct about the force on the hub (I actually said the same thing half way up the page), but the more dangerous part is the force on the lugs, and the fact that if you use a lower offset wheel to do it, you don't have the third component in between the wheel and the hub. The bolt-on spacers are separating the direct connecting clamping force of the lugs going through the hub face and the wheel. (Not sure if I'm articulating this clearly).

Also, as I said, the ones you're using not having the hub centering lip on them is applying more force onto the lugs, because they are not only clamping the wheel on, but they are taking all of the force of driving, instead of some of it being dispersed to the hub.

I won't argue with that and would have to agree.
Good info for everyone here.

For now though, I'm going to keep it this way until I do the IRS swap.
Oh and you gotta admit that the car does look pretty good with the spacers.


Misnblu.com
Newbie member since 1999
Thank you Dave and JBO!

Misnblu wrote:Oh and you gotta admit that the car does look pretty good with the spacers.

Yeah it does.

Never said spacers don't make things look good.