Spacers OK for track and autocross?

[heymanwatchthis]

I am considering adding some spacers to my '01 986S mainly to improve the stance.

I want to make sure spacers do not cause a problem with performance driving - I track a few times a year and run autocross. This is a concern for me as I was at an autocross race - a guy put spacers on his new Mini Cooper Works - a wheel came off during race! Turns out he did not use longer studs...as you could imagine it was an eye-opening experience!

I have been doing a lot of reading about spacers and have not been able to see definitively - I ask people, including techs, and they are not definitive, just not to 'go too big'. Is it a bad idea to track or autocross with spacers?

My wheels are 18" Turbo Twists, considering 7mm front and 14mm back. Could go smaller if it is more practical - i.e. 5mm front and 7mm back.

I think Boxsters look great with improved stance, however do not want to degrade performance.

Any of you running 7mm front/14mm rear spacers on track and autocross?

Thanks! Gary

[Ian c]

Yes .
I posted recently about spacers , I'll go take a look and paste it here .
Buy quality .....
Bear in mind porsche 5mm come with longer studs but iirc you have to buy a set of 4 .
(I may have a spare pair to sell)
H&r , RuF charge extra for longer studs iirc .
If you go around 15mm on the rear they will/could/should be bolt on "adapters" which will convert you to studs .
You must use steel "open ended" nuts ....

[Ian c]

Here's my earlier post .
Reminded me I never went back to look what I had and add another reply

Originally Posted by Ian c

Bear in mind not all spacers are the same .
I'll only ever use top quality spacers from ruf h&r genuine porsche
They must be quality and hubcentric or you'll suffer from no end of wheel wobble problems .
I have plenty of sets and will only use these 3 makes on my p-cars

Going by memory (some are already fitted on my cars and the others are in a box somewhere in my garage) ....
The genuine porsche 5mm and h&r and ruf 7mm are not Hub enteric but are small enough to use the existing hub and have a hole to fix using the existing counter-sunk screw .

The next size up is 14mm hubcentric h&r , 15mm hubcentric ruf , 17mm hubcentric porsche . And these are really "adapters" rather than "spacers" as they bolt on and have studs to mount the wheel to .
Anything I have bigger than that us not suitable in a "normal" 986 scenario .

Note there is nothing around 10mm as around this measurement you're in the grey area between having enough of the existing hub to hold the wheel center and having enough spacer to add a "new" hub .
Although I recall having a set of ruf 10mm hubcentric spacers in my box ..

If I have time on Sunday I'll go hunting in the black hole that is my garage and post pics and confirm everything I've just written from memory

[rastta]

I've run spacers for years on track - but always hub and wheel centric and always with studs. By wheel centric I mean that the spacer is designed to fit in the wheel where the normal hubcentric ring is for those wheels that required it.

[jsceash]

I use 15MM spacers on the front and 5MM on the rear. This is to prevent rubbing inside. I would be careful in some organizations the stock class does not allow spacers if the track is increased +/- 1/4".

[LAP1DOUG]

I run spacers all the time with no problems. The best spacers I have found are from ECS Tuning:

ECS News Porsche 986 Boxster/S ECS Wheel Spacers


They are hub-centric, and include the appropriate length lugs in each kit. One unique feature is that they also include longer screws into the brake disc top hat, so that you can screw these spacers onto the top hat if you want, and they will stay in place whenever you take the wheels off. I personally do not use this feature though, as I change out spacers to optimize the track for each wheel, and I use a lot of different wheels.

As the previous poster noted, you probaly want the larger spacer on the front to maximize track width at the front. This will help reduce weight transfer at the front, and help reduce the gross understeer these cars have when stock.

[Ian c]

I'm not sure I can for more than 5mm on the front with 245 tyres .....

[heymanwatchthis]

Thanks everyone for your input! I checked out ECS - they have a great selection and a good video on spacers. Now I need to decide what sizes I want...

[Chronohunter]

A question for you guys that have played with the different widths: So they look and handle better with the spacers but is there any issue with daily driving? Is steering feel effected? Does the car start to tramline? If yes what width might this start happening?

Thanks

[Ian c]

IMHO they definitely look better
Small spacers such as 5/7mm all-round shouldn't noticeably effect handling .