Are spacers bad?
 

so from what ive heard, and what my common sense tells me, another part added in between two moving parts is probably a bad thing right? you'd probably want these two pieces to be as tight and as stable as possible (your wheel and your wheel hub) especially if you're doing a launch or atleast taking off fast, what do you guys think? i want good fitment, but i also want reliability, and to be sure i dont break anything. so in conclusion i guess what im asking is, are spacers safe to run if you're going to be a hooligan?

Edit: as far as how much spacer im adding id say, half an inch to an inch.

Thank you in advance for any comments, and or criticism.

How much spacer are you adding? Without that, it's hard to say.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8CCFF3kJPc"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8CCFF3kJPc[/ame]

I've got another video from Engineering Explained, but this one covers more of the pros/cons to wheel spacers.

For me personally, it wouldn't be worth affecting the suspension/steering geometry and adding more load to the wheel bearings.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWijfooeSyU"]Wheel Spacers & Adapters - Good Or Bad? - YouTube[/ame]

A good hub-centric bolt-on wheel adapter (spacer) isn’t any worse than running a low offset wheel in that size. It will add stress to your wheel bearings, but so would the wheel in that situation. I was curious as to what I could run, so had a set of 55mm adapters made, and ran them for a couple seasons of competitive pro-am level drifting with no ill effects. As long as the adapter is quality and torqued to the hub properly, you’re good. However, slip on spacers are a no go, there’s too many things that could go wrong with them. Source: I’m a Design director at a major wheel manufacturer.

From a straight normal and shear force perspective, spacers are no different from just mounting wheels if installed properly. Both use compression and friction to hold themselves in place.

The difference is in the moment about the wheel hub you will have. As others have said, changing the moment will affect wear on the wheel bearings, as well as suspension geometry and effective spring/damping rates.

If you are using a spacer to bring another set of wheels with higher offset closer to the stock offset, then you will maintain stock wear and suspension parameters. If you are decreasing effective offset, there will be some amount of change. What that would be would require math I really don't feel like doing right now lol.

Spacers get a bad rap. Tons of guys are running them to clear their bbk. And they are tracking them. Good quality parts installed with some intelligence should be fine.

Back-in-the-day, I had a 1956 Ford Pickup that had chrome reversed rims ...... doing about the same thing as spacers ....... I never had a wheel bearing go bad .......:popcorn:

I'm sorry ........ I'll go take ma meds ..... :sigh:


humfrz

If you get them, get good hub centric spacers, don't cheap out, they are part of the #1 safety system on your car- the wheel assembly.

I never had spacers on my FRS but I did on my GenCoupe. It changed the feel of the car and I didn't like it. The turning radius will increase and the car won't be as agile having a wider wheel base. They looked good though.

Turning radius will increase? How so? Only way i imagine that to be possible, if with specific spacers/offset wheel rubs on arm, so to "fix" that one limits steering angle.
There are other things that may change, like more scrub radius, that will change steering weight feel, following grooves, spring ratio, beering wear .. but steering radius?

As for spacers from safety POV .. properly installed they imho are safe enough to be used everywhere, including track. Or mount security decrease is slight enough to not care. Just that adding another part rises possibility of installation (human) errors. Using hub-centric bolt on spacers reduce possible human errors, as it's more of mount it (hopefully properly) once (eg. think of frequent remount scenario such as pre/post trackday), but they usually are all thicker then slip-on ones, so they will also rise suspension geometry change (for some, ill-)effects. If you absolutely must locate wheels more spaced outside (most commonly for flush looks, isn't it), if you have choice of course wheels with native needed offset is safer choice. But it's not THAT bad with spacers to strike out that possibility. I'd check if their use is permitted in specific class or specific country though. IIRC in land down under like AU their use was not permitted?