interesting offset question

sethwas · May 6th, 2003, 01:59 PM

So,
I searched and surprisingly didn't find my answer. Its bout offset, but not the built into your wheel kind. On B14's the rear wheels are sorta narrow inside the fender. Is it possible to get the wheel pushed out farther with a spacer of some sort. I don't want new rims with wider offset. Just keep the rims flush with the side of the car. (obviouisly the tire will stick under the fender).
I wouldn't want to do this up front (spacers make me nevous with power and steering in the wheels, but out back it may not be so bad).

Seth

Phil I. · May 6th, 2003, 02:46 PM

Offset is built into the wheel. Every wheel ever manufactured has a specific offset. Basically the lower the offset the more the wheel will be pushed out, the higher the offset the more the wheel will be tucked. If you'd like your wheel to be pushed out farther than it already is and you don't want to buy new wheels with an offset lower than stock you'll have to use spacers. I wouldn't recommend going with spacers more than 10mm in width. The thing you have to realize is that if you only use spacers on your rear wheels only your rear track width will increase, this will make your car much more viable to develop even worse understeer.

sethwas · May 6th, 2003, 03:57 PM

Thanks.
Most of that I already knew. But:

The thing you have to realize is that if you only use spacers on your rear wheels only your rear track width will increase, this will make your car much more viable to develop even worse understeer.

Thats what I wanted to know.

Seth

bahearn · May 6th, 2003, 04:20 PM

I would say a "slight" tendency to more understeer.

Greg200SE-R · May 6th, 2003, 06:23 PM

Hey Seth,
I had the same concern about my wheels and how far inward they sit. I have some H&R spacers arriving shortly to fix this. There are a bunch of off-brand spacers out there, but the only ones I would be willing to install on my car are the H&R Trak Plus spacers. I got mine from SIX autoworks (www.sixautoworks.com). They have the lowest prices I could find, and have been easy to work with. Tell them Greg from Hawaii sent you!

Oh yeah, depending on how thick the spacers are, the increased track would in fact cause the rear end to stay planted a little more, while effectively decreasing the rear spring rates to some degree.

azkicker0027 · May 6th, 2003, 09:25 PM

your car looks clean seth, but drop it first, then you'll appreciate the nice tuck the rear wheels have but the annoying fender gap(wait that's my case), but yeah drop it yo......