Wheel Spacer Help

[slyck68]

I'm trying to find a relatively inexpensive 18" wheel for my 68 Firebird and I can't seem to find something I like in the proper backspacing. I really like the American Racing Rogues, however in the 18" size they only offer a 8.5" width and 6 1/8 backside (I assume this is the same as backspacing?). These have a +35 offset...whatever that means. For a non-mini tubbed rear end with a Moser 12 bolt and Wilwood discs could anyone give me any insight as to what wheel spacers to use (if any)? I've heard I shouldn't use wheel spacers at all, period. Any advice? Thanks guys, I'm new to all this and picking wheels has become very overwhelming.

-Josh

[Project69]

For the rear youd want about 4.75 bs so 6.1 - 4.75 = 1.35.

So you would need a 1.35" adapter, but im not sure if they make a 1.35 adapter.

You can find cheaper vette wheels, i got the C5 Z06 style wheels for my camaro. And they fit nice and look good.

[MrQuick]

you can have adapters made to your specs. just make sure you ask for hub centric type.

Contact junior at www.motorsport-tech.com tell him your a pro-touring member and he should know what your after. You will need to take measurments from your hub and rim center to get the perfect fit. price will range from 150-175 a pair.

[Project69]

If you have a spare piece of 2x4 just shave it down until the wheel is spaced out just right in the wheel well and get the measure and have it made.

[GetMore]

I have a set of adapters from Motorsports Technologies, and I was not pleased with them at all.
They installed the wrong studs in mine, and I did not like the way the adapters fit. I paid extra for them to be made hubcentric and wheelcentric, which they did, but the fit was very sloppy.
I contacted them and sent the adapters back to be corrected, and all they did was replace the studs.
Then I called them to complain again about the poor fit and was told that they haven't had any failures, so they don't consider poor fit to be an issue, and that they didn't care what I thought of it.
If you look at stock wheels and how they fit on the hubs you will notice that there is no slop. The adapters I was sent had about 1/8" of slop between the "tolerance" of the hub side and the wheel side. In my opinion that made them lugcentric, and defeated the point of spending the extra money for them to be wheelcentric.
Add in the fact that I have no idea whose hardware is used, and I have no confidence in their product. If I need a set of adapters I will make my own, using ARP hardware, for the same or lower cost. However, I'll have something that fits right and that I can have confidence in.

[vintageracer]

I have had good service from adapters made by "www.lugnutking.com"!

[Project69]

I bought my adapters from ebay.

Here they are, hub centric, fit perfect, the studs where the newer metric size but i didnt care.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/WHEEL...QQcmdZViewItem

[slyck68]

Wow, thanks for all the input guys! Who would guess that buying a set of wheels would be such a pain?

[Project69]

Wow, thanks for all the input guys! Who would guess that buying a set of wheels would be such a pain?

Me lol

[Apogee]

I just went through this on my Nova...I'm running 1/2-20 screw-in wheel studs front and rear, so I just got some 1/2-20 all-thread and cut a few extra long pieces and screwed them into my hubs and axles. This gave me a set of extra-long studs that I could then use nuts and washers to set whatever offset I wanted and verify fitment. I pulled the springs out up front because it made cycling the suspension and steering that much easier, but it only cost me a few bucks for the all-thread and some time. Granted, I already had my wheels and tires so my size and offset was predetermined.

I'm making my own wheel adapters, but I will say that Motorsport Tech (and Junior in particular) is the only company I've ever had to reverse credit card charges against after giving them every opportunity to fix their mistakes...and they couldn't have seemed to care less. I'll personally never do business with them and can't recommend them in good faith to anyone, except maybe someone I really don't like. :P

[MrQuick]

Sorry about the high jacking section here but sorry you guys had problems with them.

I haven't had any with the times I have have sent them orders. Like I said before crap in crap out and will stress again the importantance that correct measurments are given.

[GetMore]

MrQuick, I gave them measurements that were accurate to within .001". Not only that, but we were dealing with standard GM dimensions.
To top it all off, their adapters did not fit each other closely.

I can (and did) make a better part. If I had known what a crap part I was paying for I would have found the material somewhere and made my own set.

I don't know if you have lower standards, or if they sent you a better part, but what I got from them, plus their customer support (or lack thereof), was completely unacceptable. I cannot recommend them to anyone, and recommend that anyone that needs adapters should go elsewhere.

[MrQuick]

No need to get nasty about it. Not sure what happened or who screwed up. I don't work there nor do I have any control of the workers.

I personaly never had a problem but will watch out for them. I will also not promote home making of adapters. There is way too much riding on untested material and construction practices. Good luck with that.

[GetMore]

I'm sorry I came across that way, I wasn't giving you attitude.

I don't know if I'd call my project "home" made, I did it in a machine shop, on a lathe and a milling machine. I'm sure everyone else does it the easy way now, with CNC units, but the old way still works.
I used a piece of round aluminum stock, so it was even "billet."

[Magntik]

http://www.skulte.com

Try these guys.
I bought a "short" set just in case. And the guy I talked to on the phone wanted very exact measurements and didn't want to take the order until I had exact measurements from the wheel company for the hub diameter. Shipped them when they said and even emailed me to make sure I was happy with them.

[Apogee]

http://www.skulte.com.

I've heard good things about them, but haven't had any personal dealings with them yet. Good pricing it would seem.

Something else to consider when buying/designing/machining wheel adapters is whether or not they have a torque ring on them. A lot of the cheaper ones do not, but if you look at well engineered wheel spacers, they will typically have a torque ring machined into the rotor side to mimic a wheel interface. This helps maintain consistent lug nut torque on the inner set of studs which can only be inspected with the wheel removed.

[GetMore]

I read your post twice, but I still can't quite picture what you mean by "torque ring". Could you elaborate, please?

[Apogee]

The torque ring defines the contact area with the hub (or the rotor in the case of a slip-on rotor). Steel wheels with stamped centers will have a ring or two inside and outside of the wheel studs. This keep the area of the wheel directly around the wheel studs from contacting the mating surface and allows the wheel center to compress (like a spring) as you torque the wheel studs, essentially acting like a lockwasher of sorts. Without this void for the wheel center to compress, you get very high contact stress directly around each wheel stud leading to localized yielding of the material and potential loosening of the lug nuts over time. What you want is uniform contact pressure across the mating surface of the wheel, 360 degrees around the hub face. To do this with a finite number of wheel studs, five in this case, you need something in the geometry to spread out the force induced by the lug nuts.

Most aluminum wheels have pockets around each wheel stud on the mating side of the wheel that serve the same purpose, and differ primarily due to the different manufacturing techniques, machining versus stamping.

Not a great explanation, but there are a couple of crusty pics on this site: http://www.diamondracingwheels.com/TermsTorqueRing.htm

[GetMore]

Thanks for the explanation. I was kind of guessing that's what you meant.
I have not seen those on adapters and hadn't even though about that issue.

[Apogee]

De nada. There is a company, H&R, that includes torque rings on all of their adapters, but they don't make custom adapters that I'm aware of. They offer several thicknesses in the 5x4.75 pattern, but it one of those don't work you're SOL. H&R Track+ wheel adapters are the only ones that I'm aware of with TUV (German equivalent of DOT, only stricter) approval.