peterp

Although I'm typically an originality guy, the wheels being inset so far from the fender edges does look a bit weird. I have a C2 996.2 with 17" Turbo Twists. From what I've read, it sounds like 15mm are about the widest that can be added (please correct me if I am wrong). My questions are:

1. Are there any downsides to using 15mm wheel spacers?
2. Is the ECS kit with spacers and lug nuts the best choice?

zbomb

1. No... I ran 12MM front and 17MM rear on my stock LW setup and they looked fire.
2. Best - not sure, not sure how one would quantify that. They are good enough for me and I beat the **** out of my wheels / tires / brakes / hubs / uprights. The quality is really good on both the spacer and the extended bolts. Would gladly recommend.

peterp

Thanks for feedback. Is ti better to have narrower on the fronts -- (e.g. 15 mm rear / 10 mm front) instead of 15mm front and rear?

zbomb

I don't know much about the 17's so hard for me to comment on best setup.

Spitballing here... I would say the factory leaves 15MM on the table pretty easily - so, I don't really think you could go wrong with 15MM all around.

You said you are an originality guy so I am going to take a stab in the dark you're at stock ride height, in which case, I would feel very comfortable with the 15MM all around. FWIW, on my LW setup, if I was going to do it again, I would have went a little bigger in the front.

Good luck amigo - hopefully someone with some experience with the 17's can give you some experience based advice.

peterp

Thanks. Yes, stock ride height. It sounds like 15mm all around is the way to go.

Hazmat1071

I have 15mm ECS spacers on my 01 C2 and haven't noticed any difference in performance or ride quality on my 18" rears.
I definitely was a little skeptical after doing some research, but I couldn't be happier with the results

peterp

Looks awesome. I so need to do this (originality be damned ).

zbomb

Come on over to the dark side… women are better looking, beer is colder and grass is greener.

JP_Gervs

that looks great. 15mm in front as well? Or stock front?

hardtailer

Scrub radius increases by 15mm which increases steering effort required, puts higher loads on the wheel bearings and probably moat relevant: It increases steering wheel kickback when driving over bumps.
At the rear you effectively increase the lever arm of longitudinal forces (I.e. braking and accelerating) wrt the car which might result in greater lift-off oversteer tendency.

Personally I'd wear the 17" tyres and once worn, would get 8x18et50 and 10x18 et65 and the stock tyre sizes for those wheels

zbomb

All that is over my head, from a functional standpoint both on track and the road - my car has always handled pretty, pretty good 🙂

peterp

Did you not see how pretty they are???

Thanks, this makes sense and is exactly the type of downside info I was looking for. I'm not dissuaded from doing it, but I like to know what the tradeoffs are. I want to stick with 17" wheels (it's my wife's car and she generally doesn't like the ride +1 or +2 tire sizes). I would think that going with wider 18's would have a bit of the same effect, or is the increased wideness symmetrical to the center point of the wheel?

Hazmat1071

Thanks. The front is stock 18x8.5 53mm offset

hardtailer

You're welcome, glad you appreciate it.
Increased width is then symmetrical when ET/offset remains the same. I believe this is not the case when changing from 17" to 18" on the 996(.2)

Argeo

Will you know if the tires rub without looking? Would you hear it. I put 15mm on my 4S in the back. They look like they would hit but after driving quite a bit, no issues as far a I can tell.

I tried the 15mm in the front. When turned all the way, they were like an 1/8" front hitting the plastic towards the front so I bailed on that. Currently just running the 15mm in the back.