Is there any such thing as inexpensive wheel spacers, I inhereted a set of 9in cup 2's for my 86 944. I have tons of clearance on the outsides of the rims but i'm very close on the inside. They're almost touching my H/R springs. I'm looking to get just a little more space on the inside for peice of mind. whats the smallest spacer i can get? I was thinking about 7mm or so. I heard that late models came with spacers from the factory. Can i get those anywhere?


Thanks,
Dan

 

Dan, Racers Edge has 7mm spacers for $30 each, that's about as cheaply as I've found them.

I see you've added Rochester to your location, are you going to school here?

 

Yeah, I'm finishing my last semester at Nazareth right now. 30 a pop aint bad.

 

I've got a pair I'll sell you for $50 + S&H... They are Racer's Edge & I only want to sell themn b/c I ended up not using them. They are a hair large for factory lugs, thoughj- they're 1/4" or 7mm & you can't get the nuts down too many turns on stock lugs, so I dont think they'd be safe- I'm now using 1/8" spacers on stock lugs, but they are not much space- you might want more also, the RE ones are aluminum & my 1/8 are steel, unfortunately.. I'm looking for some 1/8 aluminum... PM me if you want the RE ones for $50 + S&H though... They're brand new & in perfect condition..

 

Hey Rob
I have the 7mm spacers on the rear my 86 and I have plenty of turns on the lugs. I'm thinking maybe the PO had longer studs installed. I can use them with or without the spacers with a closed lug. Maybe it's the CCW wheels? I've never had the stock PD's on there. BTW: How's that interior coming?

 

Hey Steve- yeah, I think your PO installed longer ones, but maybe not- it COULD have something to do w/the wheels I guess. Ever try it a stock wheel just to see...? I just think stock are a touch short w/7mm b/c everyone has told me so, although I have seen people say that ~7mm is the limit of safety w/stock lugs, which would mean it's right at the line. Still, others say you need to get a minimum # of full turns...

In my situation, I was trying them w/stock Club Sports & they would have worked, had I cranked them on down, but I just decided I wanted a little more thread on there for piece of mind. I bought them b/c I was going to go to 17" Cup II's. I checked here & was told that the smaller the # the further IN the wheel would be. This makes sense. This would mean that the CS rear (60 something) would stick out a litle further than the Cup II (a 50 something IIRC). You know, if you have 100mm of OFFset, then the wheel would be further AWAY from the hub, towards the outside of the car/fender, than would a wheel w/a 50mm OFFset... Well, as it turns out, I was assbackwards. Still doesn't make sense to me, but whatever. I just know that the Cup II's were a touch further out, which is what the car needed. I ended up leaving the 1/8" spacers on & it looks perfect IMO.

The interior was going great until I decided to throw on another Nuprene layeron the rear seats w/the red can Willwood stuff. I found that the 3M Super 77 did not do a good enough job sticking down the 1st layer on top of the Polyken tape. When checking it, etc, the strength of the Willwood stuff actually pulled up places of the bottom layer, so I felt like it wasn't making enough contact & the base is pretty important. SOOOOO, I ripped it all off & just started over- it's really not a big section. But, weather has held me off a long while & now I had to waste some time scraping old stuff off... But the red can stuff works well & I'm now using it to apply Nuprene INSIDE the side walls (behind rear wheels where rear speakers are & I'm going to put a nice top layer on over the entire hatch to try to make it all LOOK nice. I tworks pretty well. Several people have tapped on my doors- the passenger has a door panel on it, but no sound deadening & the driver has no door panel but both Polyken & Nuprene & even w/the big open holes, etc, the driver side is still quieter & more muffled. I think it will be great in the end. Thanks for the suggestions. How's your car going...? I've sent a few e-mails & never heard back from you...

Sorry about the tangent Dan...

 

if you have an 86 w/ cup2's on the rear- wouldnt you need like a 30mm spacer on the rear? Im saying this because i have a set of 30mm bolt on spacers that i was using to mount my old cup2's to the rear of my 86 turbo. $60 shipped.

 

Naaaahhhhh.... go 7mm, $55 shipped.... That's what ya wanna do.... Those 30mm's will rub the outside fenders for sure...!!!

No, I'm just kidding. Well, all except about the price for mine, that is. Do you have any way of borrowing a spacer of any kind to try to get an idea OR have you done some measuring to find out for sure what you need?

If you're going to have to change lugs anyway, you're better off knowing for sure, to get the right length & only do it once to save time, effort, & $. If the 7's will work w/stock lugs, then that saves some hassle, but if 7's not enough for you, then it doesn't matter anyway. You're only talking about spacing the rears, aren't you...?

 

if you put some 7/9" 55mm wheels on an early car, you should need 25mm up front and 30 in the rear to make it look right. Im still using my 25mm's up front but dont need the 30mms anymore. Im using longer studs w/ 15mm rear spacers for 45mm offset wheels, but w/ 7mm spacers you should be fine w/ stock studs.

 

Oh the places this thread has gone since I checked last. First off, the wheels are all 47mm offset 9" wide. My dad had a set of the H&R 28mm spacers that i used for the rear and they brought the wheels out nice. The fronts have no spacer right now and the drivers side has about 10mm of space on the inside and about 20 or so on the outside.(rough estimates) The passenger side has like 5mm of space on the inside and whatever on the outside. What i'm looking to do is split the differences and allow myself some tolerance on the insides of the wheels. This leads me to think that the 7mm spacers would be my best bet on the front.

Will there enough lug left to be safe on the track?

 

As for lugs, I think the only thing we could do would be to speculate, unless you're positive they're stock (OR aftermarket) & someone knows the exact lengths. I would be afraid to say you'd be ok w/out seeing, but you know, it sounds like you've got more room on one side of car than the other. you COULD get some 1/8" spacers to go w/the 7mm- my 1/8's are ~3-4mm, so that would help make up for that 5mm dif on the outsides- if I understand correctly. I would sell a pair of the 1/8" ones to you- they are fine & have worked well on my car for years, but they're a touch heavier- when I pick them up, I can tell that 2 of the 1/8's are a little heavier than 1 of the 1/4's, when they should be half the weight. But, we're just talking an once or two. I have a full set of 4 of the steel ones & I'm almost certain I have a pair that has not been used ever, so I could sell them in addition to, or seperate from, the 1/4's - I could do them for cheaper $20 for the pair + S&H as I paid less for them.

The only other way is to find a spacer & try it, I geuss. I think most tracks would measure & would allow you to drive w/the car if it were not safe in their opinion, but I don't know how closely they check those things. I just wouldn't sell them to you under the assumption that you would not need new lugs. I'd suggest working out some sort of loan, to see, but S&H would add up if they did NOt work... Maybe some others here will have more ideas...

 

on the topic of the difference in spacing, can't that be adjusted with the alignment?

 

I don't think this is possible, but I'd welcome any input on this, as I'd definitely like to know if I'm wrong. I mean, the distance from the edge of the fender when the wheel is bolted firmly to the hub, would stay the same, I would think, despite alignment. Maybe if you did really aggressive camber, you could make the top of the wheel look closer (or further) from the fender lip, but then if one wheel is further from the sied than the other wheel (on other side of car) then you would have to do much more aggressive camber on one side & that would really make it handle funny. This is what it seems like to me, but again, I could be wrong.

 

You're putting late offset wheels on an early offset car. Having the rear track correct with the H&R spacers but the front way too narrow is going to give you really bad handling. I don't think you'll like the way this handles at the track at all.

 

That does sound like a bit of a dif- the rears would be spaced 21mm more than the front- that's getting close to a full inch dif- it might LOOK decent, to increase the rear track by MORE than the front. How would that affect the handling, anyway....?