if u go to fast and ur wheel is unbalaneced like it might be now, its possible for your wheel to fly off, lol, posssssible.

 

ok.. lets clear this up. Spacers will ruin your handling due to torque steer and tramlining.. AND they will ruin your bearings... They will probably also ruin your suspension AND the steering rack.. why? Leverage.

By moving the wheels further out from the centreline of the car, you are giving the wheel MORE leverage over the suspension and steering than the car has control over the wheel. It is like holding a one foot stick in your hand. If you hold onto the very end, you can swing it around with ease and with a good amount of control... now, still holding onto the end, extend that stick another foot. You might still be able to move it with ease and with control. but it take more effort.. even if the weight of the stick did not change, it still has more perceived mass due to the amount of leverage it has over your hand.

In this way, a spacer moves the wheel outwards from it's pivot points, both steering and suspension. This in effect makes the steering heavier and more vague, and it works to SOFTEN your suspension due to the lengthened angles and lack of leverage the springs and shocks (struts really) have over the wheel.

 

ya, thats exactly what i was trying to explain earlier (and failed misserably) thats why from post one i was saying that i ONLY wanted to do it to the rear wheels, it will still hurt it but it wont decrease handeling as much

 

All seems like to much trouble to me rolleyes.gif

 

ya, definatly aint worth the 8 extra mm

 

I have H&R spacers just on my rear hubs basically to make my rear fender well look normal. With the Cuda kit if flares out around the rear fender well area and it look hideous without the spacers, like someone took a sledge and whacked your rear wheels in like 3 inches on each side LOL. (You guys with Cuda kits know what I am talking about.)

In my case I went with the big 25mm spacers to try and fill it out as much as possible. So me mentioning 30000km and my bearings starting to wear is with the extreme 25mm spacers. Putting spacers on the front I haven't really wanted to try due to the probable negative handling effects. Sort of makes ya think when these "widebody" conversions that are done, how the suspension handles it.

I have heard of bearing issues on our cars regardless if spacers are used or not, is it usually the front or the rear ones that go bad?

 

well, just remember, putting spacers just on the back will tend to make the rear stick more.. leading to some pretty serious understeer.

 

Mad-Machine, do you think the spacers I've got on will be noticeably detrimental to the car? They're only 8mm... but not hubcentric.

I've not had any issues with them & I even recently went up the coast on a week-long holiday (about 500klms each way) doing highway speeds with no sign of the wobbles you'd expect if the wheels weren't centred properly...

I'd feel like a right tool though if I screwed my wheel bearings because of the spacers! :

 

well.. if you do not have centring problems with the rims to the hub yet, I doubt you will have them in the future.. I would check your lugs once in a while to make sure they stay tight.

As for your bearings.. Front wheel bearings seem to be weak on our tibs.. due to a slightly dragging brake, I have had to replace two right side front bearings on my car.. the left side is original.

8mm though.. would you happen to know the offset of your rims? If you are running a 35 offset.. 8 mm would bring you back to 43.. which is more or less just outside the 35 the 42 mm offset our cars seem to like.

 

My current rims are still the stock ones... but I got the spacers so that I didn't have to worry about the captive bolts limiting my choices.

The rims are 15" x 6" with (I think) a 42mm offset.

I was looking at getting 17" x 7" rims (around 13lbs a piece I think) with about the same offset so they'll come out a lil' further.