wheel spacers (wide stance) vs handling

[azerty]

Hello there,

I'd like to start a discussion about wheel spacers vs handeling on starlet chassi.

I have done quite some read on other cars. there loads which can be find on porsche and bmw but those are RWD and obviously very different in many other aspects.

there are few reason people would like to use wheel spacer :

- wider stance to have more grip during cornering (due to less lateral weight transfer)

- looks (having your wheel flush to arches)

- leave room for big brake kit

- reduced lateral load transfer

the main downsides will be:

- bearing wear

- heavy steering due to exessive positive scrub radius

- increased torque steer due to exessive positive scrub radius

On my side, I have big brake kit, so using wheel spacer would let me have much more choice in terms of wheel design. it would also help during cornering. but I'm realy worrying about increased torque steer (which is already bad enough on standard starlet suspension geometry). the heavier steering won't be a great thing during slaloms neither.

I would like to know what is the standard scrub figures on our starlet. anyone would know ?

I plan to use 20mm hubcentric spacers, and move my coilovers top axle (using camber plate) the maximum close to engine bay so I would get maximum angle (SAI) to help with scrub figures not beeing too positive (then I'll adjust camber from bottom mount to reach -2°)

[azerty]

for those wondering about scrub radius and SAI (steering axis inclinasion)

Scrub radius is the result of camber, steering axis inclination (SAI) and rim offset (spacers affect rim offset).

Edited January 5, 2013 by azerty

[rmsnoel]

What wheel size and iffset do you plan to use azerty. I used 15x7 et38 with a arch to hubcentre of 330mm for a nicely filled arch and extreme cornering forces with a whiteline'd ep91.

A neighbour of mine has 13x7 et5 superlites and slammed to the ground. it tramlines little but he.drives slow because of the rideheight

[azerty]

I use 15*6.5 et35 ATM. next rims will be in same range as that's what is easily available over here. popular offset is et38 (but also can find et35 and et40), popular 15" width is 6.5" (sometime there are some 7", but this is not that easy to source over here in this size)

you are using 330mm spacers ? I guess you meant 30mm, right ?

I do rally and slaloms, so I really want to make sure I won't have negativ side effects :/

Edited January 7, 2013 by azerty