Wheels spacers or not?

[dougs01S]

Good Morning- I am considering adding spacers on my 01S. I have OEM 993 Turbo look wheels; fronts are 7.5x18 with 50" offset. Rears are 9x18 with 52" offset

Current tires are Continental Extreme Contact DWS all season. 225/40 on front and 265/35 on rear

Can anyone provide guidance on suggested spacer widths for front and back?

Also, for those who have added spacers to their cars, do you notice any change in driving characteristics and handling.

Thank you-

Doug

[mikefocke]

What are you trying to achieve by adding spacers? Are you compensating for an offset change? Thinking of new wheels?

[alexc0814]

Yes I added 20mm spacers all around to the same setup and it looks much better. If any change at all it may have felt more planted but that might have been in my head too. Probably could go a couple extra mm on the front but 20 looks pretty much perfect

[dougs01S]

Thanks for your imput-

Alex- could I ask where you found the 20mm spacers? Did you buy the recommended 82mm lug nuts (per Pelican Parts website) as a package with the spacers? I was thinking it might be more cost effective to buy everything as a package from someone.

Doug

[alexc0814]

Yeah so the first thing I got was some random stuff on Amazon but those had a curved edge that ended up preventing it from sitting flat against the hub even though it claimed to be for the car. The bolts I got were also the wrong shape, so I took the opportunity to get a lug stud kit since the bolts were expensive anyway. In the end, I should’ve just gone with one of those kits if there is one because it would’ve probably been cheaper. I was at motorsport hardware when they found the uneven wear on the spacers so I just got their spacers instead.

[dougs01S]

thank you Alex-

Doug

[alexc0814]

No problem, good luck. One more thing- my car is lowered too so this may be because of that but my front wheel well liners have some marks on them from rubbing at full lock I guess? But I’ve had the spacers for 20,000 miles and a couple years now so it’s definitely not an issue. I had both 15 and 20 all around and the 20 definitely looks right.

[Starter986]

Originally Posted by alexc0814

Yeah so the first thing I got was some random stuff on Amazon but those had a curved edge that ended up preventing it from sitting flat against the hub even though it claimed to be for the car. The bolts I got were also the wrong shape, so I took the opportunity to get a lug stud kit since the bolts were expensive anyway. In the end, I should’ve just gone with one of those kits if there is one because it would’ve probably been cheaper. I was at motorsport hardware when they found the uneven wear on the spacers so I just got their spacers instead.

What? Never heard of it. A non-moving part wears? Please advise.

[alexc0814]

The wear occurred presumably when the wheel was bolted down and torqued. The finish on the curved part of the spacer was scratched off, and it was clear that that was the only part that the wheel was making contact with. Obviously, if you have bolt-centric spacers only this isn’t an issue, but if you have hub-centric You need to be sure that the flat part of the spacer is making contact with the wheel.

[Burg Boxster]

Originally Posted by alexc0814

The wear occurred presumably when the wheel was bolted down and torqued. The finish on the curved part of the spacer was scratched off, and it was clear that that was the only part that the wheel was making contact with. Obviously, if you have bolt-centric spacers only this isn’t an issue, but if you have hub-centric You need to be sure that the flat part of the spacer is making contact with the wheel.

Hub centric is preferred/recommended for proper seating (correct offset aside...).

The rotors are hub centric not bolt centric for a reason.

Your issue seems more accurately related to having wrong bolts and also installation (possibly caused by wrong bolts or further exacerbated by installer doesn't really matter bc doing correctly starts w knowing and having right parts).

Good luck

[alexc0814]

Yeah I wasn’t saying that bolt centric is better than hub centric, my new spacers are also hub centric. The wear didn’t have anything to do with the bolts, there was a curved edge where the flat part of the spacer met the perpendicular hub centric part of it which wasn’t allowing the wheel to properly seat on it. This doesn’t exist on my new spacers and that wear isn’t there. Not sure how the incorrect type of bolt could have even cause that in the first place?

And I mean, there’s really not much to “installing” spacers, right?

[paulb]

I put on 15mm spacers all around. Only because I thought it would look better, & I think it does. I’ve not noticed any change in handling, but I also don’t have any data like lap or auto cross times before & after to compare. I doubt it changes anything meaningful, it’s just appearance unless you go to extremes & then I would expect a negative effect. The ones I bought came with new bolts.

[dougs01S]

Thanks, Paul. Good to know

Doug