25mm spacers good? bad?

[theredmeadow]

I looked this up on the forums but never saw that it was asked.

I recently installed 25mm spacers and was wanting to know if they're going to cause any added stress to the hubs later on? is there any known issues that these hubcentric spacers can cause?

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[Petroleum Jesus]

I looked this up on the forums but never saw that it was asked.

I recently installed 25mm spacers and was wanting to know if they're going to cause any added stress to the hubs later on? is there any known issues that these hubcentric spacers can cause?

I'm considering installing these. It would be valuable to me to get some intel as well.

 

[Meraki Autoworks]

Let us know, we've sold some H&R 25mm to customers, seems to be very popular!

I would think its fine to add spacers, and won't cause premature wear as long as you're not tracking your car and driving it VERY hard all the time.

-Josh

 

[Agent_S550]

I love mine.

While I understand the argument that leverage is key, you're talking about a suspension that has camber built into it from the factory. In the event this was a solid axle car and the bearing stayed on a perpendicular path to the ground, I would agree, but a lateral load is already placed on these bearings from the factory. Plus they're pretty large. I don't think it's going to do anything.

 

[Jdenkevitz]

Here is a post from a Youtube video discussing the potential negative impact (I am not the author of this comment, but am curious if this is accurate):

"Increased tire wear, changes to the dynamic toe, loss of stability under hard braking, drastically reduced wheel bearing life, and reduced thread engagement. Thread engagement occurs when you fully seat the nut up against the wheel. Spacers, unless you use a modifed hub, will not be able to engage fully... thus reducing the overall threads that are holding the nuts on the car... which reduces the overall force on the wheel. Over time, or in the case of hard track use... a much shorter amount of time, the wheels can become loosened, thus damaging a mounting bolt. Now, fun fact. Due to the forces involved, if you break one, you'll usually instantly shear the rest of them off... causing the tire to fly off your car and destroy your fender.

There is just no nice way to say it. Wheel spacers are rice mods. There is no practical use for them outside of a guy trying to look cool or a guy trying to mod his car on a dirt cheap budget. That's because these mods WEAKEN your car and, overall, reduce performance while offering a trivial amount of reduced load transfer. Now, if you were to use coil-overs, you can get in excess of a 10% load transfer reduction with a lowered vehicle. See, load transfer comes best when your spring rate and rebound rate are equal when coupled with wheels with the proper offset. Wheel spacers reduce your spring rate because your wheel is pushed out of alignment with the spring. This is also what causes the irregular tire wear because instead of a pure vertical motion, the spring is pushing on your tire at an angle, which in turn causes the tire to roll over slightly and puts less tread on the ground in a turn. Your body won't roll as much, but the amount of tire tread on the ground is less... which results in an overall functional traction loss. On uneven surfaces, your rebound and spring rate are now mismatched which causes loss of traction and steering responsiveness (if the front end also has spacers). "

This was in relation to the following video:

[ame]

 

[FranzVonHoffer]

Here is a post from a Youtube video discussing the potential negative impact (I am not the author of this comment, but am curious if this is accurate):

It's an accurate assessment of the mods but that really only matters if you track the car. If you drive it in a regular manner on the street and you torqued the spacers down then torqued the wheels onto the spacers correctly you should be fine.

If you are tracking the car you want to avoid spacers, however I think the spring swap is probably fine on a drag strip but if you're autocrossing it, then you probably want a tuned suspension. I think it's just what you're asking out of the car.

Mine's a commuter, so I swapped the springs and bolted wheel spacers on it.

 

[BlueThunder]

and reduced thread engagement. Thread engagement occurs when you fully seat the nut up against the wheel. Spacers, unless you use a modifed hub, will not be able to engage fully... thus reducing the overall threads that are holding the nuts on the car... which reduces the overall force on the wheel.

For the OP, search in the wheels and tires part of the forum, there are multiple spacer threads.

In response to that quote above, that's only for spacers, not actual adapters which have their own threads and are directly bolted to the hub, and then the tires bolted to them.

A lot of the negatives you'll hear about spacers are from the older lug-centric ones which weren't balanced properly and would cause all sorts of issues from vibrations to wheels flying off etc. I did probably 2 weeks of research trying to find anybody saying something negative about 20-25mm hub-centric adapters (not spacers, as that size wouldn't fit without removing the OEM lugs and replacing them with much longer ones). All I could find was folks who had them for a long time and never had any problems.

Yes, they're probably causing some extra wear on your parts, but how much? Who knows. It's an inch. Maybe in a few years down the road guys who have had them on for 10k/20k/30k miles might start seeing abnormalities, but maybe they won't. I wouldn't track/race my car with them on, and would love to get new wheels down the road, but as a much cheaper and temporary option (or if you love your OEM wheels), they're one of, IMO, the best cosmetic mods you can do.

As with any mod, there's probably always some risk involved. I don't think I found anybody having a problem using hub-centric adapters from reputable companies.

.02$

 

[jbailer]

I've had mine installed for almost a year and maybe 15,000+ miles. No issues at all and I love them.

 

[BlackBoostedStang]

That's my GT in the video above, and the comments on the spacer were pretty insightful and its all true when talking about tracking the car. I wound up switching to a 20mm in the rear to guarantee no rub on the 285 tire. They will be coming off for an autocross later this month.

 

[theredmeadow]

do you guys balance your tires right before installing? seems like any slight out of balance and the hub centric adapter will amplify it.

 

[BlackBoostedStang]

do you guys balance your tires right before installing? seems like any slight out of balance and the hub centric adapter will amplify it.

Yes I did everything the same day. Once you get everything torqued down the spacer will line right up. The only way it would be noticeably out of balance would be a manufacturing defect

 

[theredmeadow]

Yes I did everything the same day. Once you get everything torqued down the spacer will line right up. The only way it would be noticeably out of balance would be a manufacturing defect

I purchased the coyote billet 25mm adapters. How often do you know that there may be a defect? I'm gonna get my tires balanced today. Have you guys experienced any issues with tire shops refusing to work on cars with spacers?

 

[Need4SpeedMotors]

If the spacer is properly created then they are safe to use.

Now in this case its not called a spacer its called a adapter because the studs are needed for them to be properly used on the platform.

When I do adapters and spacers I have my local shop CNC them from 6061-t6 Aluminum so their made from the best material possible.

 

[Grintch]

Bad, but they are a cheap way to look good (or at least better).

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Motorsport Tech has spacers/adapters made from Alcoa 6061-T6 forged aluminum, lifetime warranty, very high quality.

They also offer the option of a 25mm front and a 23mm rear for a touch better fitment that accommodate the PP wheels.

http://www.motorsport-tech.com/

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