I wonder how long it will be until somebody chimes in and claims that these are not safe (even though they are).
While it may be "safe" in that the wheel will not fall off, it will change things. It will change loads on wheel bearings. It will also increase the distance from the steering pivots , ball joints or king pin, to where the tire touches the road. This changes alignment angles which can cause problems. I am sure the engineering people on here will graph it out and explain this.
Kinda depends on which wheels someone is using, eh? If the effective offset of the new wheel + spacer is different than original, then it can cause those problems. But sometimes guys use those long spacers so they can use wheels with quite different offset. And you can have those issues by using different offset wheels without a spacer, too.
Hell I'll say it, "These are not safe" Not a thing wrong with wheel spacers if you make sure that everything stays good and snug. The do add stress to the axle/wheel bearings but no more then a reversed rim does.
Maybe it's just me but it seems like a little better planning early in the build would eliminate the need for extra parts and pieces. There may be reasons like someone giving you a set of "perfect" wheels that really make your ride but have the wrong offset.. Maybe a show car that never dumps the clutch at 6K with wide slicks.........
Can you provide more info on your set up that requires 3 inch spacers. Be sure to get billet spacer and not cast with that much offset, good spacers are expensive.
They seem to be real popular with the off road boys, I guess to widen the track for rollover, or maybe just to look cool. Seem to hold up for them. The new ones are billet with shanked lug nuts, the old ones were cast segmented affairs using standard lug nuts, some even had unilug slots. Even those always worked for me if you kept the lug nuts tight.
I ran 80mm spacers at over 200mph, with no issues. Those were a hair over 3-1/8". Enabled me to run a common, less expensive wheel.
Just to add a little something to the thread it has been mentioned that a little better planning would help. I have in my lifetime tried to plan things to the Nth Degree, but there are times that things like a spacer becomes part of the plan. I built a car once with a guy that was racing in an obscure cl*** that required things like stock appearing carbs and wheels, stock width rear ends, springs in stock location and etc. He was allowed to run any width tire that would fit within the confines of the sheet metal. In order to get the tires that he wanted to run we had to space the wheels out 3/8" then do a hat trick. The spacers were a planned part of the build. I cannot say that this has anything to do with the OPs build but sometimes spacers are just part of the game.
^^ Yep. I'm running spacers on mine. When I needed a rear end nothing stock was narrow enough and I found an already narrowed rear someone took out of a pro-street car dirt cheap. Saved a bunch of labor and bucks. It was a bit too narrow but with the spacers it allows me to juggle wheels and offsets.
It's a *******ed pain the *** though when you have to do a brake job, or an axle seal, or a gear change.
Sure they do. How else would my crew change my tires, and fill the tank, in 19-seconds. Off the track, it is called a torque stick. Google it.
Knock offs! My lug nut socket has been married to my rattle gun for so long they're probably fused, though I do use hand tools on occasion, mostly when the hose won't reach.
No. Knockoffs are WHY I ran the spacers. The factory knockoff magnesium wheels that the car was supposed to have were $4600, each.
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