Wheel spacers (till what thickness?)
Discussion
Hi out there,
Does anyone of you know till what thickness a wheel spacer can be used before the
wheel hits the wheel arches of the body.
Cheers,
Paul
It will vary from car to car, between front and back and even side to side. The only real way to be sure on your car is to measure the gap all round.
Comments like that remind me of my Ur - the body shell was actually fabricated ~3mm out of true on the right hand side - so the whole car is actually lopsided. The first thing you have to do on any Ur if you drop it to stop it wallowing so much is to grind out the wheel arch on the off side to make the standard tyres fit!
GreenV8S said:It will vary from car to car, between front and back and even side to side. The only real way to be sure on your car is to measure the gap all round.
Various reasons have been rumoured - including it was done to offset the torque steer that the early cars suffered from - me, I just think the chassis jig was miss set!
J
Beware of the type of spacers you fit.
Most types are just a spacer disc with bolt holes through them and come in various thicknesses. I would definitely NOT recommend these on a TVR, as the bolts take the full load of wheel movement and the sheer forces are huge!
If you want to fit spacers, OMP make some which bolt onto the existing hub and you bolt the wheel onto the spacer. The sheer load is taken up by the shoulder or lip around the centre of the hub as it would do in the normal way. i.e The spacer fits onto the shoulder on the wheel hub, and the wheel fits onto the shoulder machined into the spacer so the load force is taken up by the hub and not the bolts!
Far safer and much lower risk of snapping all the bolts on a sharp corner!
Jas.
Most types are just a spacer disc with bolt holes through them and come in various thicknesses. I would definitely NOT recommend these on a TVR, as the bolts take the full load of wheel movement and the sheer forces are huge!
If you want to fit spacers, OMP make some which bolt onto the existing hub and you bolt the wheel onto the spacer. The sheer load is taken up by the shoulder or lip around the centre of the hub as it would do in the normal way. i.e The spacer fits onto the shoulder on the wheel hub, and the wheel fits onto the shoulder machined into the spacer so the load force is taken up by the hub and not the bolts!
Far safer and much lower risk of snapping all the bolts on a sharp corner!
Jas.
For those who want to know the reason:
The reason for the wheel spacers is the following.
I bought the brake upgrade kit from HiSpec motorsport Engineering, Dartford,
Kent.
I was told they fit a TVR Chimaera by them.
The TVR wheels have a thicker rim at the inner side of the wheel. For this
reason
they are not fitting. Adding a spacer of 10 mm would fix the problem. Also
selecting
other wheels would solve the problem but is expensive (and not budgeted
for).
Cheers,
Paul
The reason for the wheel spacers is the following.
I bought the brake upgrade kit from HiSpec motorsport Engineering, Dartford,
Kent.
I was told they fit a TVR Chimaera by them.
The TVR wheels have a thicker rim at the inner side of the wheel. For this
reason
they are not fitting. Adding a spacer of 10 mm would fix the problem. Also
selecting
other wheels would solve the problem but is expensive (and not budgeted
for).
Cheers,
Paul
Peter,
I do not see how you can space the calipers in?
If this would be possible (which I doubt) I would
consider it. But the position of the calipers is
implicitly dictated by the position of the discs.
Those can not be positioned inwards (they would hit
the rubber of the steering rack rod joints (where attached to the hubs).
Cheers,
Paul
I do not see how you can space the calipers in?
If this would be possible (which I doubt) I would
consider it. But the position of the calipers is
implicitly dictated by the position of the discs.
Those can not be positioned inwards (they would hit
the rubber of the steering rack rod joints (where attached to the hubs).
Cheers,
Paul
10mm is a lot for a space, I have those on my Golf racer and they're a pain - makes putting the wheels back on especially difficult.
And yes, you need STRONG bolts to take the strain. I feel safe enough in my 118BHP hatchback, not sure about spacers on a Chimaera...
On the plus side they improve the looks of the car surprisingly - wider track - far more aggressive stance.
And yes, you need STRONG bolts to take the strain. I feel safe enough in my 118BHP hatchback, not sure about spacers on a Chimaera...
On the plus side they improve the looks of the car surprisingly - wider track - far more aggressive stance.
robertp said: I am interested in getting that 'wider stance - more aggressive look' for my Chim without the expense of bigger wheels/tyres - can anyone recommend specific spacers or Company?
Fitting spacers is not a good idea because they dramatically increase the risk of the wheel bolts failing. Insurance companies in particular don't like them for that reason and yes you would need to tell them.
Steve
www.tvrbooks.co.uk
robertp said: I am interested in getting that 'wider stance - more aggressive look' for my Chim without the expense of bigger wheels/tyres - can anyone recommend specific spacers or Company?
Rally Design in Faversham, Kent sell different types but the best ones are the OMP ones they sell, which have the features outlined in my posting above and are more suited to competition use. Wheel spacers are always a risk though and will inevitably put more strain on associated components. Lots of people use them in competition cars without any problems, but you should be aware of the potential risks.
Also bear in mind that the steering geometry WILL change as the wheel offset will have changed and this will make the steering heavier. It may also have an adverse affect on handling due to understeer as the Ackerman angle might change. (It gets a bit complex here, but Ackerman is the angles that the inside and outside wheels need to turn at with respect to the radius that the car is driven through. It may not have any effect at all but is again worth considering just in case).
Jas.
Don't forget if you fit spacers you will mess up the king pin offset, placing more strain on the wheel bearings/ball joints/steering (hence reducing their life), and increasing the kickback and tramlining. From an engineering point of view this is a pretty naff thing to do. Not disasterous, but just a bit naff.
ok - I take your points guys although all I wanted to do was take them out slightly to fill the arches more not look like an F1 car. The car is certainly not bad looking as standard but the wheels another 1/2inch or so out each side would have appealed to me and there is certainly enough overhang in the arches to accommodate this
But as I dont have PAS dont think I'll bother on second thoughts....
>> Edited by robertp on Wednesday 5th March 23:16
But as I dont have PAS dont think I'll bother on second thoughts....
>> Edited by robertp on Wednesday 5th March 23:16
mrt1040 said: What about peninsula and the like suppling wheel spacers to correct offset, so you can fit larger alloys.
Would this cause the same problem as below?
Surely they wouldn't do it, if it caused safty issues.
Adding spacers is not a trivial proposition but it all depends on how much. A couple of mm is not too bad but the bigger the spacer the more the problems start to occur. One common one is to forget about how the wheel behaves when the car is driven hard and then you find the wheel fouling the body work and this could be expensive or cause an accident. It may cause problems and you also have the fact that lower profile tyres etc will also change the car's handling and usually requires other changes to springs and shocks to compensate for the reduced tyre wall flex.
As many people fit this things cos they look good, these issues get conveniently forgotten about.
Steve
Since wheel spacers have been raised here, I plan to do a little experiment at Silverstone next Saturday.
I'll qualify with the 10mm spacers I've got fitted, then remove them for the race. Assuming weather conditions are the same and I don't get punted off on lap 1 I'll report back on the times for each session and any change in the handling.
Its a non-championship race so a good opportunity to mess around with stuff like this.
I'll qualify with the 10mm spacers I've got fitted, then remove them for the race. Assuming weather conditions are the same and I don't get punted off on lap 1 I'll report back on the times for each session and any change in the handling.
Its a non-championship race so a good opportunity to mess around with stuff like this.
i didnt mount wheel spacers but did fit the widest wheels physically possible. see pictures of the car here:
www.per-web.com/tvr/index.html
these are the relevant details:
rear:
original wheel size 7,5" Offset 32mm
my wheels are 8,5" x 17 Offset 19mm
this makes the outside part of the wheel sit 25,6mm (about 1") wider outside, i.e. it is pretty much in line with the body, it looks HOT!
front:
original while size 7" Offset 25mm
my wheels are 7,5" x 17 Offset 16mm
this again makes the outside part of the wheel sit 15,4mm wider outside.
However, the rear tyre did touch the inner side of the wheel house in very fast curves, so I had the inner side modified slightly. In other words, if you think of mount wheels spacers, which I would not do, then dont go for more for than 15,4mm in the front, and somewhat less than 25,6mm in the rear (most probably 20mm will be fine)
cheers
per
www.per-web.com/tvr/index.html
these are the relevant details:
rear:
original wheel size 7,5" Offset 32mm
my wheels are 8,5" x 17 Offset 19mm
this makes the outside part of the wheel sit 25,6mm (about 1") wider outside, i.e. it is pretty much in line with the body, it looks HOT!
front:
original while size 7" Offset 25mm
my wheels are 7,5" x 17 Offset 16mm
this again makes the outside part of the wheel sit 15,4mm wider outside.
However, the rear tyre did touch the inner side of the wheel house in very fast curves, so I had the inner side modified slightly. In other words, if you think of mount wheels spacers, which I would not do, then dont go for more for than 15,4mm in the front, and somewhat less than 25,6mm in the rear (most probably 20mm will be fine)
cheers
per
Forums | Chimaera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff