Wheel Spacers....

[Truzo]

Hi I would like to know what size spacers would be best ?

I have a rev 2 turbo with stock rev 5 wheels. 205/55/15 225/55/15

I would like to make them fill the arches without any rubbing or handling issues.

Any help or info would be awesome.
There used to be an offset wheel calculator somewhere but i cant find it

Cheers.

[abovetherim]

Simple to place a straight edge across the face off the wheel and tyre and up the the wheel arch then measure gap. This tells you maximum

[CalMac]

Have a look here: http://91mr2.com/wheel-and-tire-calculator/

According to that, standard wheels sit about 35mm in from flush - so a 35mm spacer front and back should have the desired effect. If you're on standard suspension then you shouldn't have any rubbing issues as there's plenty of clearance.

You might want to step the sidewall profile down to 50 front and rear though as at the moment you're running higher profile than standard. Up to you though, it won't make a huge difference

[Truzo]

Okay thank you That was the calculator i was looking for.

I'm thinking around 25mm spacers front and rear. Will i experience any adverse handling issues with them ?

[HighwayStar]

Hey Truzo.

You shouldn't do after all you're just widening the track the same amount front and rear.

I'm running 15mm hub centric H&R spacers on my rears. The wheels themselves are like the standard wheels in that they are 7" wide but have an ET of 35 rather than the standard's 45.

In effect then that's like a standard wheel with a 25mmm spacer… 10mm further out due to the offset difference then another 15mm due to the spacer.

Pics of how it sits in my garage. On standard suspension there are no issues but on my last 2 with the same wheels and much lowering there was rubbing until I rolled the arches… That was however with standard rear tyres… 225/50/15. As has been said 55 is too high a profile.

R.

[Truzo]

Hey highway star thanks for the info. Your car looks nice that's what I'm after for mine.

[SonicSW20]

You shouldn't do after all you're just widening the track the same amount front and rear.

It's not as simple as that. You're also reducing your effective spring rate at the wheels as you're moving the wheel further away from the pivot point - it's acting as a lever essentially. The difference will be minimal with a small spacer, but increases with larger spacers. This also puts more force on your wheel bearings, which will reduce their life span. Again, this effect increases the larger the spacer is.

Watch this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWijfoo ... gExplained

The benefits are very small compared to the downsides.

[HighwayStar]

These effects though are no different to swapping to aftermarket wheels with different offsets from stock… something I guess the majority here have done with no apparent downsides I've seen posted.

It's true that on my old white rev1 I had to replace both rear wheel bearings but then I also had to replace a front which never ran a spacer (although the aftermarket wheels 'pushed out' the centre line 10mm through offset). But then I was over 200,000 miles at the time and bearings will eventually wear whatever once they've done enough mileage.

In short I've run those spacers now for a decade or more with no noticeable negatives… Indeed I had a conversation with Rogue about moving them over to the new car when scrapping the old white one and they reported similarly 'nothing to declare'.

I can't and won't argue the science of course, in fact I concur, but in my experience I've found no real downsides running the configuration I currently have. Whether or not that would remain the case were I running much wider spacers remains to be seen.

R.