20 mm spacers on daily driver - any drawbacks?

Gonna put 20" Foundry's on my ordered '18 GT. Thinking about 20 mm spacers, but wondering if there are concerns regarding suspension, handling, etc. It will be my daily driver - are there others out there running spacers on a daily driver? Is it a bad idea?

Get some clear bra on your rear quarter panels or some rock guards. Otherwise, not really.

Rash said:

Gonna put 20" Foundry's on my ordered '18 GT. Thinking about 20 mm spacers, but wondering if there are concerns regarding suspension, handling, etc. It will be my daily driver - are there others out there running spacers o a daily driver? Is it a bad idea?

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I run 25mm (1") spacers on my 2015 GT and haven't had any issues. I've run spacers on every performance car I've owned and have never had problems. So long as your lugs remain tight, it's no different than running without them.

SiMuL said:

I run 25mm (1") spacers on my 2015 GT and haven't had any issues. I've run spacers on every performance car I've owned and have never had problems. So long as your lugs remain tight, it's no different than running without them.

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Daily driver?

I'm about 18 months on spacers and they've been fine however on 20 mm's you may need to trim your lug bolts or drill the wheels to accommodate the small protrusion the lug bolts have past the edge of the spacer.

I believe I drilled a 10mm well bore in the inside of the wheel. But it may have been 5mm I can't remember. Just measure how much protrusion the lug bolts have past your spacer and if it's more than 3mm that will need to be addressed or your wheel won't mount flush with the spacer.

BmacIL said:

Get some clear bra on your rear quarter panels or some rock guards. Otherwise, not really.

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^^^^^^^^^^This!!!^^^^^^^^^^

Rash said:

Daily driver?

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Yes, daily driver(s). I used the first set of spacers on my GTI, 2010 - Present, and the second set on the Mustang, Nov 2016 - Present.

FranzVonHoffer said:

I'm about 18 months on spacers and they've been fine however on 20 mm's you may need to trim your lug bolts or drill the wheels to accommodate the small protrusion the lug bolts have past the edge of the spacer.

I believe I drilled a 10mm well bore in the inside of the wheel. But it may have been 5mm I can't remember. Just measure how much protrusion the lug bolts have past your spacer and if it's more than 3mm that will need to be addressed or your wheel won't mount flush with the spacer.

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You can avoid this if you opt for the 25mm spacers instead and your wheels have a cutout on the inside of the mating surface (I'll explain with photos below). To help understand what Franz is talking about, see this photo:



You can see the lug bolts from the hub on the car stick out past the outside surface of the spacer a few mm's. For this to work, whatever wheel you're using needs to have a cutout on the inside so the lugs will fit inside them, example:



You can see they removed material from the space between the holes, this is where the lugs need to fit. If you use 20mm spacers, you will have a bit more lug protruding, so you'd have to either change to a wheel with deeper cutouts or carefully drill the space deeper yourself. Mind you, you'd want to be very careful so you don't throw the balance of the wheel off.

SiMuL said:

Yes, daily driver(s). I used the first set of spacers on my GTI, 2010 - Present, and the second set on the Mustang, Nov 2016 - Present.



You can avoid this if you opt for the 25mm spacers instead and your wheels have a cutout on the inside of the mating surface (I'll explain with photos below). To help understand what Franz is talking about, see this photo:

You can see the lug bolts from the hub on the car stick out past the outside surface of the spacer a few mm's. For this to work, whatever wheel you're using needs to have a cutout on the inside so the lugs will fit inside them, example:

You can see they removed material from the space between the holes, this is where the lugs need to fit. If you use 20mm spacers, you will have a bit more lug protruding, so you'd have to either change to a wheel with deeper cutouts or carefully drill the space deeper yourself. Mind you, you'd want to be very careful so you don't throw the balance of the wheel off.

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Yeah, just like that. I checked my notes when I got home and it was 5mm we bored into the wheel. Obviously the best solution is go with a wider after market wheel but yknow... if you want the stance while your saving for a wider wheel.

I have read that the 20" Foundry OEM wheels have space for the lug bolts for 20 mm spacers- anyone have experience with that?

FranzVonHoffer said:

Yeah, just like that. I checked my notes when I got home and it was 5mm we bored into the wheel. Obviously the best solution is go with a wider after market wheel but yknow... if you want the stance while your saving for a wider wheel.

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Hey Franz, I just noticed you're in Houston, too. Are you part of the s550 Houston group on FB?

SiMuL said:

Hey Franz, I just noticed you're in Houston, too. Are you part of the s550 Houston group on FB?

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yep, I'm on there. I keep a low profile but I'm there.

Two bolted joints in series are much weaker than one.

Checking your lug nut torque now requires you to pull off the wheels to access both joints. So it now takes 10 times as long to do it right.

Throws off your scrub radius (ideally you want the steering geometry to turn the tire around the center of the contact patch).

Adds rotating weight.

Yeah, I wouldn't track a car with spacers on. Just for commuting.

Grintch said:

Two bolted joints in series are much weaker than one.

Checking your lug nut torque now requires you to pull off the wheels to access both joints. So it now takes 10 times as long to do it right.

Throws off your scrub radius (ideally you want the steering geometry to turn the tire around the center of the contact patch).

Adds rotating weight.

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You made four points, so I'll address them respectively:

1) The nature of the forces acting on the wheels, spacers, and hubs invalidates this argument. There are virtually no forces acting on the lugs in a normally operating vehicle, other than the force it takes to hold the surfaces together, which is almost constant, even in cornering.

Unless you smack a curb sideways, the differences in strength using spacers or not is negligible. It's definitely not enough to even worry about when it comes to using them.

2) I agree 100%. It will take longer to check all of the lugs, but how often do you really need to do this? And is it so much trouble that you'd rather not have the stance you're after? For me, it's way more important for my car to look just the way I want vs an extra 30-40 minutes to check my lugs twice a year.

3) This is true as well. I couldn't tell you how much an extra inch on both sides will change the performance of the vehicle, or if having the wider track has negated any downsides with the wider scrub radius. I do not know much about suspension geometry to debate this. I do, however, know from my own (limited) experience that I did not notice any difference at all using spacers.

Maybe this is something you would feel more in a track environment.

4) We're talking VERY little weight here and the weight is concentrated in the center of the rotating mass, which reduces it's overall detrimental effects. Again, this is such a minimal disadvantage, it's hardly worth mentioning.

This video goes into the major concerns you might have on how spacers affect the overall characteristics of the vehicle:

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And here's a blog post in regards to tracking your car with spacers. The consensus is that it is not a big deal:

http://nickscarblog.com/reviews/are-wheel-spacers-safe-for-the-track

He even points to another article where they show that they're also safe for hardcore offroading, too.

It all comes down to making sure you use quality spacers and hardware and always match the lug seats to your wheels (whether ball or cone shaped seats).

FranzVonHoffer said:

yep, I'm on there. I keep a low profile but I'm there.

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Yea, I feel ya. I also keep a pretty low profile there. You ever make it out to any of the meetups? I've only been to one. The early 2017 PSI Motorsports Dyno Day.