Wheel Spacers

[ROCK]

Hello,
I saw a 05/06 GT parked outside a restaurant last week. It has OEM rims with wheel spacers on all 4 corners and I was amazed by how perfect the body looks flush with the wheels. It looks beautiful, I was walking towards the car and it appeared to be lower, it isn't. It looks wider and more muscular.
I'm very interested in doing this so anybody with any information on size of spacers, studs and bolts needed for this job, I would appreciate it.
I understand the spacers probably throw the car out balance and stuff, but if I'm not tracking or racing the car so looks become more than function in this case. Besides, it can go back to stock in less than 30 minutes.
Thanks

 

[ultrasportracing]

Ive used wheel spacers in the past, although not on the GT, throws the wheel geometry way out unless you change the wheel to have more inboard, so as to bring the wheel centre back to factory specs,( Where the centre of the tyre touches the road) if you can imagine a line through the top and bottom ball joints, and where that line touched the road, its usually near centre of the tyre,, so adding a spacer will effectively bring the contact point nearer to the inside of the wheel giving a lot more leverage to the wheel when encountering bumps etc)can have massive tramlining effect, wont hurt to do it on the rear though. May be I can do a sketch

 

[MTV8]

I can tell you that spacers would not change the balance of the car any more than aftermarket wheels would. I do not have spacers on my GT, but have run many different combinations of spacers on other cars with absolutely no issues. You just need to be sure they are hub centric, and that the new studs are extended an equivalent amount to account for the spacer width.

 

[Howard]

I too have run spacers on many cars, including my current Cayman, with no ill effects. Of course, anything can be done to extremes with resultant consequences, and I can see the picture that Ultrasportracing is painting. But modest spacers (less than 1/2 inch), with extended studs, is unlikely to do harm; and if you feel it has, go smaller.

Howard

 

[Ed Sims]

I have 1/2" spacers for the front HRE wheels to clear my AP Racing brakes on my GT. It seems to work just fine. The GT Guys installed them.

Ed

 

[texas mongrel]

Spacers on the front positively increases the scrub radius. The consequences of this are; lighter steering effort, which leads to a tendency to tramline around cracks etc, plus more twitchiness under braking because the wheels can change direction more easily. I'm guessing that the stock FGT has large values of negative srcub radius (most modern cars do due to ABS which needs the vehicle to keep going straight as the system approaches and instantaneously locks a wheel), so spacers would just reduce the amount of negative scrub, probably hardly discernable in practice although maybe a bit twitchier on the track?

 

[Ed Sims]

I haven't been to the track with the HRE wheels/spacers. On the road there is no difference that I can tell.

Ed

 

[texas mongrel]

I put 15mm spacers on my 12c and they definitely make the car more darty, although I think the PSC2s also contribute to that effect