[Mk2] [Generic] Hubcentric spacers on the rear only. Safe?

[Razor04]

Running 17 x 7 et40 rims all round but the rears could do with bringing out 10mm or so to fill the rear arches, the fronts are spot on.

Thinking of fitting some 10mm hubcentric spacers just on the rears to bring them out a bit.

question is:
is it safe to just widen the rear track?
will it upset the balance / handling of the car?
are hubcentric spacers generally deemed ok to use or does it put stress on the wheel studs?
how do the spacers fit? i.e do you end up with less thread on the studs for the wheel nuts to fit on?

info please wheel guru's

[^Trickster^]

I had 5mm spacers on the rear of mine for 5 years, they came with the car and I just always left them on, when I fitted 245 rear tyres I had to take them off so the tyres didnt catch the arch.

I have not noticed a difference in handling.

Graeme

[Century Motorsport]

The only thing you need to worry about is the amount of thread left for the nut to tighten on to. 10mm will probably be OK but you need to be seeing 10mm thread to make sure everything is safe.

Nathan

[Munnsy]

i would definately extend the threads, i have recently just fitted 5 mm spacers hubcentric on the rear and came with extended nuts, can never be too safe when it comes to wheels and anything that connnects the car to the road.
As for safety i cant see any reason why having them on the rear only can be dangerous

[Kongaroo]

Widening the rear track will make the rear of the car more stable and gives slightly more lateral grip at the back - in other words the rear will be less likely to swap ends on you/reduced chance of oversteer. So if like me that's something you would consider desirable then I guess it's a good thing

I've had both types of hubcentric spacers on the car for a couple of years now without any problems (ie. there are bolt-on ones that come with the studs embedded in the spacer itself and then there are the ones that require the factory studs to be replaced with longer studs). But bear in mind that the further out from the hubs you go you will end up putting more stress on the wheel bearings etc.

However I wouldn't have thought this stress would be any worse with hubcentric spacers over say fitting a wider/lower offset wheel to achieve the same effect without the spacers.

Btw Tirerack recommends a minimum of 6.5 full turns of the wheelnuts to secure the wheel on the type of wheel studs that the MR2 uses. If you aren't able to get that many turns then you are going to need to fit extended studs

[JeffD]

I run rear 25mm spacers on back only with no problems at all :-)

[Caribbean_Blue]

I have 20 mm hubcentrics on mine no problems.

[HighwayStar]

No probs with my H&R 15mms.

R.

[supacorse]

porsche 911 -911 turbo wide arch conversions use 85 mm hubcentrics ,also as used on my mr2 355 conversion 85mm for a few years now

[C50]

i'm not a big fan on spacers as it exerts double shear stress on the studs (which takes the load) even with hubcentrics but will be ok unless you have a 1000+bhp beastie