S4 wheels on -88 Turbo ?

[Tobbe]

Does anybody know if it is possible to fit S4 wheels on my -88 Turbo ? It has the Citroen gearbox. I understand that you might have to take off 2 mm on the front wheels inner hub, but how about the rears ?

[tobbe]

Please, does anybody have an idea about the rears ? Is it possible to make them fit ?

[superdave]

The rears go straight on without any machining. The front however need 2mm overall on the diamter machining from either the hub or the wheel. The wheel is easiest. I did mine last year and the machining cost £25. The other way to do it without any machining whatsoever is to buy wheel spacers all round. IMO, the S4 wheels sit too far inside the wheelarch. I put 20mm spacers on and the wheel misses the the hub. The only downside is that our wheels are hub centric and centres on the hub. It just means that putting a wheel on is a bit of a pain and you have to rely on the bolts to centre the wheel.
You can also buy hub centric spacer kit but these are expensive. If you want these type of spacers then try www.demontweeks.co.uk (£160 for a set of 4).
Universal spacers are only about £8/each.

Cheers,


Dave Walters

[tobbe]

Thanks for the reply Dave, but you have the Renault gearbox with outward brakes in your car. As I said earlier, I have the Citroen box with inward brakes. As far as I can figure, I would have to put on 50 mm spacers to get the offset correct. Unfortunately I don´t know what that would do to the cars handling, nothing positive I imagine.

I love your car though

[superdave]

Thanks for the kind words. The pictures are little out of date.
Back to the brakes, are your standard wheels a different offset to my turbo wheels my1990? I thought they were all the same. Iam not familiar with your set up but thought that regarless of where the brakes are, the hubs are in the same place.
I take it that yours are 108PCD 5 studs?
Also have a look at the offsets on the maintenance section on this site, it has all the wheel offsets etc.
Also check out the owners pages on www.lotusespritworld.com A guy called Stephen has put 50mm spacers on his SE and it hasn't upset his handling.

Hope this helps,



Dave Walters

[superdave]

Yes having just checked this page, you are absolutely right about the offset. You can get a 50mm hubcentric spacer kit for this from the place I suggested above and this will cost you about £80 for the rear two.

Cheers,


Dave Walters

[tobbe]

Thanks ! I have emailed them to see if they can deliver some to me here in Sweden.

[superdave]

You can also try puk which are based in Germany? I think. I little bit more expensive but the carriage may be cheaper.
Have a look on www.lotusespritworld.com to get their details.

Dave

[stephan]

Tobbe,
I will explain you something about the spacers on my car: I fixed 25 mm spacers at each wheel (front and rear, 50mm/axle). Good handling of the car since I fixed them 2 years and over 20.000 km ago. Ramspott-Brandt (www.ramspott-brandt.de - english site) in Germany offers spacers for the front + rear 25mm (each side) 134.20? 2 pcs., for the rear 30mm (each side) 140.80? 2 pcs. and for the rear 35mm (each side) 147.40? 2 pcs. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Stephan

www.lotus-esprit-se.de

[tobbe]

Thanks to both of you. I´ll check with them too, but unfortunately I think 35 mm will be to little.

[Tobbe]

Well that didn´t go so well... Demon Tweeks haven´t even answered my email, and RuB answered at first, wanting to know if I had the inboard or outboard brakes(even though I stated in my first message that I had the Citroen gearbox), and haven´t gotten back to me after I answered their question.

Does anybody have any other idea ? Should there really be a difference on spacers depending on whether you have the inboard or outboard brakes ? Aren´t the hub and bolt patterns the same ? Are there other differences that can affect this ?

[superdave]

Tobbe, there is a section about this on this site under parts/wheels, have a look. The offset is definately different for the Citreon box. I would buy the wheels if you can get them for a good price and worry about spacers after you have bought them. If all else fails, you can probably sell them on for the same price.


Cheers,


Dave Walters

[Tobbe]

Yes, I know about the offset: -20.3 with the inboard brakes and +30 with the outboard brakes. As I see it, a 50 mm spacer will give me an offset of +29.7, which would be close enough. What I don´t understand is why there would be a difference between a 50 mm spacer for the Citroen box, vs a 50 mm spacer for the Renault box, if the hub size and bolt pattern are the same ?

[az88turbo]

Tobbe,

I attempted just what you are trying to do on my 88 (Citroen box) with S4 wheels. To cut a long story short; they won't fit; the rears will fit on the curb-side but even with the spacers on will rub on the other side and not look or feel right. I got my spacers from JAE at about $175 per axel. Then I had to get the fronts milled out to fit which made the center parts drop off. I decided to stick with the wheels I had but left the spacers on for about a year, looked cool. I just took them off a couple of weeks ago; doesn't look so cool but the car seems to handle much better without them.

Just my 2 cents.

Mark - 88 Turbo

[tobbe]

That´s not what I wanted to hear How thick where your spacers ? Maybe they where to thin. Seems difficult to find spacers that are 50 mm, which is what I think required to make it fit.