? About 1/4" Wheel Spacers

[siteunseen]

My car came with 1/4" spacers behind the steel wheels when I bought it.  I took them off and have been driving without any issues.  

 

After putting Konig Rewinds on then driving around in tight circles there was no rubbing so I put the spacers on the rears, looks a little better to me.  With the acorn lugs there was plenty of threads left to tighten the wheels down. 

 

Is there any potential problems running the spacers on the rears?

 

Thanks for any advice or experiences doing this.

Cliff

[Travel'n Man]

Personally, I would not run spacers unless it is nessecary for an upgrade.

I do have spacers on my front due to a larger front brake upgrade to avoid the wheel from digging into my caliper.  I thought about shaving the caliper but I did not like that idea either........so the spacer was nessecary.........but I really didn't want it.  If I upgrade to 16" wheels or get new wheels with a slight offset then I can do away with my spacer.

[siteunseen]

Do they create some kind of "weakness", can't think of a better word, between the wheel and the brake rotor or is it less thread strength holding the wheel on for your personal taste?  Thank you for your input, I can live without them for sure.

 

Also they are different ones for front and rear, I believe, 2 were flat around the center hole and the other 2 were beveled.  I left the beveled ones in a box. 

[gnosez]

I have run 1/4-inch in the front and 1/2-inch in the rear on my 240Z race car for more than 10 yrs without issue. I have added longer stud bolts as rules regarding lug nuts are that they must be open and the end of the stud bolt must be equal to or out of the top surface of the lug nut.

 

Just because you can catch threads on an acorn covered end nut doesn't mean you have enough threads to be safe.

 

You want a hub centric up front and a lug centric in back. Summit Racing sells nice ones but you need to mill out the center to get a true hub centric spacer.

 

No added stress or damage will occur because you have inserted your 1/4-inch spacer. You might even find your Z tracks better with a wider front wheel spacing than the rear spacing.

[John Coffey]

The S30 chassis likes a wider front track then rear.  It moves roll stiffness forward without increasing spring rate and lets you run the rear a little softer.  I ran as wide as 1" front spacers on my race car.  Never ran any rear spacers - but that was with 275 wide tires all around. 

[gnosez]

I run the 1/2-inch in the rear to fill in the CP flares during vintage events where I'm required to run 15X7 wheels. For all other events I run a 15X10 rear wheel so there's no need for a spacer.

 

I will try using just the front spacers and no rears to see if there is a noticeable difference. Tried a few years back and there wasn't but the tires and some alignment points have changed since then.