I decided to finally take the plunge and put some real sized tires on my car under some bigger fenders.

I'd like to use a set of 17x10 +35s I already have for street/track wheels, but they'd need about a 30mm spacer....

I already have ARP studs, but I don't think even they would be big enough, nor to I really want to run a slip on that big, even if I could find one. So I was looking at running some ichiba 30mm hub centric bolt on spacers.

does anyone have any experience running a spacer this big on the track? or am I just asking for problems...

 

we've run spacers that big on the track, for years, there are some problems! we don't run the bolt on ones, we just run big long ARP studs.

you do want hubcentric, it actually does make a difference, although there does need to be some clearance between the wheel and the spacer. if its too tight, the wheel doesn't seat especially when its hot, so you can leave the pits with a wheel that isn't tight. which leads to #2

#2, you need to retorque the wheels after every session. its more of a precaution, but we had one come loose once and it broke 3/4 of the studs. one stud loosened, and then the other 3 weren't strong enough anymore, since then we retorque after every session and its been trouble free.

thirdly if we do a long enduro, like the 25, we replace all the wheel fasteners. the wheel hardware is a wear part, and its kind of important

 

retorqueing the wheels after every session would really suck with bolt on spacers (I'd need to take the wheels off to do it)

I've heard slip-ons with nice studs are better, but 30mms are definitely the max that's probably ok with ARPs ( 2.5" ARPs are an inch longer in the back, plus I imagine you can get away with a 5mm spacer on stock studs... ~25mm+5mm = 30mm)

but I can't find any hubcentric slip-on spacers that big anywhere... running double 15mm spacers seems a bit sketchy

 

we had to have ours made. we're running even longer studs, as its not an FC, so in theory we could even go bigger, but wheel hit car!

 

I run bolt on type2 20mm, never had a problem with them loosening. But I put the spacers on with red loctite. Even when i didn't the never loosened up...

 

Ran 38mm spacers out back on my 5 bolt FB. Torqued the spacers to 100ft-lbs and they never loostened.

Note: it's always good practice to retourqe every session, spacers or not!

 

Porsche guys run those sizes all the time.

-Don

 

I've been running 20mm at the front and 25mm at the rear, hub centric, bolt on for the last couple of years. They're great, no problems at all ... torque the spacers on @ 100 and the wheels @ 75

Easy to buy down here in NZ ...

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/car-...-566035812.htm

Let me know if you need a hand to buy down here and ship to you

 

I just found a cool shop up here that'll pretty much make me any spacer that I can think of, but the slip on spacers max out at 30mm:

Wheel Adapters, Wheel Spacers, Hub Rings, and much more! | Motorsport Tech

I haven't decided on slip on or bolt on yet though. tires are coming today, fenders should be here in a week or so. so I'll decide then after I mock some stuff up.

I did throw 30mm worth of slip on spacers on the car last night though (3x10mm) and found out that the front ARP studs (3.25") are ok for 30mm (I have about 12mm of thread engagement) and the rears (2.5") aren't (only have about 6mm of engagement), so I'd need to take the rear wheel bearing apart again if I wanted to throw some 3.25" ARPs on the back.

 

Go with bolt-on. Slip on spacers change the physics in how wheel is attached to the hub and changes from bolt shear (stronger) to bolt bending (weaker). Bolt on spacers don't have this problem since you don't have two shear planes per bolt.

 

The bolts aren't loaded in sheer unless the wheel slips on teh hub. If the wheel slips on the hub, you either don't have enough preload, or you just hit a really big pothole and have crazy strong wheels.

Either way, if the bolts were in fact loaded to the side, they would already be in a great deal of bending. Look how much space there is from the base of the stud until the lug nut....

 

WHeel Spacers? I'd highly recommend this guy: WheelAdapter.com is your number one source for wheel adapters, wheel spacers, used wheels, and wheel studs.

He custom made me one for my spare: http://www.reganrotaryracing.com/sparespacer.htm

Regards,
Crispy

 

We have been running 15x7" +45 wheels with 18mm spacers all around for years without any problems at all. They were custom made to be hunbcentric on both sides and mounted on ARP studs have had 0 problems in 5 years.

We are now changing class and have jumped up to 17x10 +18 wheels all the way around and are using the same spacers and studs. I was thinking of adding a bit more width to the car by switching the spacers over to 50mm bolt on ones. What do you guys think? Am I exploring the outer bounds of what is safe? I'm not too concerned about the spacers coming undone, have no problem retorqueing often, but after having a control arm snap on a GT3 years ago (stock everything, no spacers) I'm a bit apprehensive. Would really like to experiment with even further track but want to keep it safe. Any thoughts or advice?

 

just got off the phone with this guy. He said he can throw some ARP studs into the spacers for me if I want, which is cool.

I think I'm going to go with a set of OEM size honda ARP studs that are about 1.8" long with a quick thread nose. (100-7710)

 

The basic fact is the wider you go on the stock hubs the faster they will wear out. The lower the offset and especially negative offset puts more moment stress on the bearings and hub. If i were going with a really wide tire and beyond an aggregate offset of 0 i would seriously consider going with an upgraded hub/knuckle assembly.

 

the wheels these are going on a +35s, so I'm not going below 0... but yeah, the front aluminum hubs already loosen up on me as it is... I'll be checking them a lot more with the larger front tires.

 

I have the supernow hubs and even those would be sketchy at 0 offset with a really wide tire.

 

How do you like the super now hubs? do they really make that big of a difference? are the bearings serviceable and are new bearings obtainable?

 

i dunno, i never had that much of a problem before with low HP and weight, we certainly were not seeing 2 sec improvements in laptimes like supernow advertises LOL

I thought they might improve pad knockback but they didn't so i don't think it was the hubs causing it, i have smoked wheel bearings before but usually just from lack of maintenance...