Fg Ute Wheel Spacers

[tfg]

Has anyone fitted wheel spacers to the rear hubs of their ute to space the wheels out of the guards . I was thinking of a 20-25 mm spacer.The type that bolt to the existing hub and the wheel then bolts to the spacer

[power_slide]

What is acheived when you space the wheels out?

[Tocchi]

greater track

and no more offset fail :(

I run 25mm spacers on my 32 drift car, no probs encountered so far

[XtRmn8]

Major offset fail on the FG utes. Even those running 20x10 rear rims still can fill the guards.

25mm spacers may be ok, but would not do much with the 8" wide factory rims. Ford need to revise the rear track and make it wider to accommodate the pumped out tray.

[power_slide]

When I was younder I used to have a go-kart, I remember when I put the wheels out wider the kart would spin easier.

If were to put spacers in would the back end be a bit looser andis it easier or harder to control?

[Rancidpunx]

Pretty sure they are illegal. Not to mention the extra stress put on the wheel lugs and also your wheel bearings.

[rockafellqeinstien]

good quality wheel spacers are used in many other countries with no problems. H7R and eibach make them and they are top notch companies. I think there is alot of scar mongering about wheel spacers.

I think if you get quality ones and install them properly you should be fine (otherwisae alot of high end BMW and audi's porsche etc whould be crashing of german autobahns at 300 kmh. Yes it does put extra strain on wheel bearings, but so do fat people.

I was thinking about spacers for my fg ute for the same reason and also on the front as the wider track would just alow me to fit 45 series tyres (I have my reasons).

want to know if its worth the effort? make some 25mm blocks and put them inbetween the wheel and hub and drop the car (dont drive for obvious reasons). you'll atleast be able to see if it makes a worthwhile difference. (it on my todo list)

now you could go right up to 90mm spacers from H&R, I am sure that would make a difference

H&R TRAK+® Wheel Spacers | Products || H&R Special Springs, LP

some info on how track width effect handeling:

Do bear in mind that if a car has wider tyres at the back, and the measurement across the outside faces of the wheels is the same front and back (which is often the case purely for packaging reasons), then the track will be narrower at the back, since it's measured from centreline of wheel to centreline of wheel.

Having said which, to answer you question... and sorry, but this is a bit complicated (I'll keep it in layman's terms, though, so apologies to Scuffers and other experts for the generalisations):

Track affects weight transfer when cornering. Basically the wider the track the less weight will be transferred across the car from one side to another.

TOTAL weight transfer is a function of the height of centre of gravity, cornering force and average track.

The wider end of the car transfers a smaller share of this total, though, so in effect, the car 'leans' diagonally onto the end with the narrower track.

More load on a tyre generates a higher slip angle, therefore, all other things being equal, wider track at the rear will make a car lean on its outside front tyre and cause understeer, whereas wider track at the front will make it lean on its outside rear tyre, which will cause oversteer.

...so track width is one tool that the chassis engineer can use to manage understeer/oversteer balance.

But there are lots of other tools/factors than can be used (tyre width, weight distribution, different front and rear spring/anti-roll bar stiffnesses to give different roll resistances, etc.), and it's a matter of juggling all these factors (many of which have other side-effects) to give the overall compromise you want.

Most designers strive for slight understeer, therefore if all other factors were equal and perfectly balanced you'd want slightly wider track at the rear. But other factors never are equal and perfactly balanced, so the short answer to whether front or rear track should be wider is 'it depends'!"