A not so simple question.
 

I have a question about something i've gotten a lot of different answers to, some being somewhat controversial. Even more so is the conflict, because i work in the wheel/tire industry at the moment.

My question is, do wheel spacers hold up to track duty? (Provided you get a quality product)

We used to have a policy at my work that if you had wheel spacers on your car, we wouldn't work on it at all-- it'd be a liability. Also, i've hard of people on forums speak of how they have caused wheels to break, sheared studs completely off and suspension damage. Inversely, i've also heard people say they use them and have no experienced any issues at all.

The wheels on my Celica are pretty tucked and i think that even after i buy new wheels and tires, they'll still likely be tucked a bit. I'm just hoping they wouldn't break during HPDE. I don't know if the breaking issues are only with heavy cars like the camaro and that cars weighing 2000-2600lbs shouldn't worry or not. Any who, thoughts?

It depends on a lot of things...

First, are you using the spacer to take a wheel with an improper offset for the car back within spec? Or are you taking a wheel and putting it out at some crazy offset? The latter is what gets you in trouble. Excessive offset on a wheel puts more loading on wheel bearings, excessive side loading on wheel bearings will cause them to fail prematurely... anyone who has had a wheel bearing fail catastrophically knows how bad this can be, this is likely the liability concern your previous employer is worried about.

Second, WITH the spacer, is there enough thread engagement between the wheel stud and the nut? A lot of people improperly throw a spacer on without considering making an adjustment to the wheel stud, reducing the thread engagement. Improper thread engagement will allow the nut to back off and the wheel can come loose.

Third, how is the wheel centered to the hub with the addition of the spacer? Wheels should be properly centered to the hub. A lot of bigger universal spacers do not hub-center, hell, most universals don't even lug-center... this causes big issues as well causing premature wear to tires and suspension components, not to mention at speed it can be very unsafe.

Moral of the story:
1) Keep the wheel centered around the hub the best you possibly can, if you have to run a significantly different offset, periodically (especially before and after track events) check the condition of your wheel bearings.
2) Keep good thread engagment
3) maintain hub centric wheel alignment

With these three things, you should not have issues with spacers, but too many people don't.

We ran a massive spacer on the back of the GXP with Hoosier A6s since 2009 because it allowed us to use same wheels front and rear, so we were able to switch and flop tires around. We ran extended ARP wheel studs, open ended lug bolts, and the spacer was a custom billet piece made for us by CCW which was counter bored to be hub-centric on the back side and had the proper hub centric ring on the front side to engage the tires. We had 1 wheel bearing issue in 4 years.

Agreed...good Advice Tim...:)


Bill

It's all in the execution. Spacers are used in all kinds of applications, OE manufacturers use spacers ALLLLLLLL the friggen time (what do you think a lifter shim is?). A spacer in and of itself, is not what causes an issue.

When used competently, spacers are a non-issue.

*plenty of thread engagement
*rational net wheel offset
*torque check

All of those things are key to competence, even w/out spacers. Spacers are just wheel offset that isn't cast/forged into the wheel.

Used properly, it's not a problem.

Thank you guys-- i'm thinking i'll only likely need maybe 10mm or so.

At 10mm, you're only going to get about 4 turns of engagement on the stock studs. I'd recommend you get longer studs; 4 turns is not safe.

Stock is about 12 turns.

Can you get longer studs at a typical auto part store?

Depends on your store, but typically yes.

I race with aluminum spacers. Aluminum is a softer metal so make sure you've fully torqued the wheel down and done a bit of driving, then check the torque again or even take the wheel on/off and re-torque. Anyone firm selling aluminum wheel spacers should instruct you to do this so the spacer "squishes" to it's final setting. And by squish I mean by an unrecognizable amount, but enough that a lug nut could come loose in a race track environment (personal experience).