Wheel Spacers?

[Sheck]

Yea i did go a little rank, sorry, but i'm sick of people bagging it out soo much and not recognising the skill (espesially on this forum). The few video's of cuircut racing from members here i've seen shows me quite clearly that they dont have the skill to drift (ie car starts to spin and there is no/little attempt to correct it and a spin occurs).

Sure it's not a race, but it is a sport, extream or otherwise, just like any other that doesnt require a time to be beaten. I'm not saying its better either, cuircut still rules, but drift is waaayyy more fun. And a car set up for either drift or cuircut can do both.

It requires alot of feel and control for the car to drift, doing both drift and race would improve your cuircut racing skills much more than cuircut alone. Just look at the pro drifters, they are all cuircut racers (JGTC) and most are very high level. And you got the backstreet drifters comming in very close, at least in the street car class (ie dont have massive amounts of money poured into the car and little to no sponsors compared to the pro class. And this street car class is what alot of the pro drivers are going into cause they are sick of spending all their money for the pro class) If that doesnt say skill i dont know what does.

Ending that rant..

As for the spacers, i dont think they are that bad, your saying all that force on small bits of metal which arent designed to handle that force. I say the force required to sheer one of those bolts is huge (ie not little weak metal things) and when you look at the hub collar this is the weak little bit of metal. (some of the engineers on this forum, if there are any, would be able to tell us sheering force and all that).

Sure MX's are hub centric, but there is little chance of Mazda making the studs soo weak as to be able to sheer off when the hub collars arent used. How many people here dont use them?? I'd say alot of ppl with aftermarket wheels dont have them.
And what about cars which are lug centric, i doubt their studs would sheer off.

Ok spacers would put this weight out a little further (i doubt any more than 8mm for non-bolt on) but i dont think that this would affect it so much as to cause studs to sheer off. And bolt on spacers wouls be perfectly safe, its basically just getting a lower offset wheel.

And as for the biggest users of spacers (non-bolt on) would have to be ppl with worng offset or wrong spoke design on their wheels not clearing the brakes (ie 4/6 piston calipers on front and 2/4 on rear). DRifters using spacers to clear suspension yes this is true but only when they have wrong offset wheels (ie not availible in correct offset). Oh and its because they have much more lock then standard, this is a problem i would have if i was running the stock 45mm offset because of the tie rod spacers i made, not because of the wrong offset for the given car.

I dont know..... thats just my thoughts make of it what you will, and please add/contradict it the more info/opinions the better.

Dave

[devolutio]

drifting is full of wank and useless mods like widebody kits that then need rediculous spacers but with so many aftermarket wheels being of FWD offset and drift being RWD oriented... combine that with the need for lots of rims to swap around and break... you don't generally get to choose appropriate offsets. The nissan guys have it fairly easy with their s13s taking fairly high offsets, but try finding wheels in a decent diameter that clear the suspension for an ae86 without spacers (0-15 offset for 6"-7").

I personally wouldn't use the spacer plates on the street, as that is the place you don't want to find out that your wheel studs WEREN'T up to the task... but i have no problem with bolt on spacers.

I own a sprinter, but it's getting too hard to drive on the street so I just bought a 92 mx-5 (picking up this weekend)... what is the standard offset for the mx5, and how low an offset can be run without too much rubbing? Anyone here drift their mx5?

[Babalouie]

I own a sprinter, but it's getting too hard to drive on the street so I just bought a 92 mx-5 (picking up this weekend)... what is the standard offset for the mx5, and how low an offset can be run without too much rubbing? Anyone here drift their mx5?

There's a few of us who drift the MX5, and the stock MX5 offset for your 92 is +45. You can get as low as +28 with a 7in rim before rubbing, and with guard rolling, +20 with a 7in rim is perfectly doable.

It's hard to find low-offset wheels for the MX5 though, there are trickles of deep dish watanabes and the like coming into the country but generally the 4x100 stud pattern means that it's a pretty MX5 specific size.

[CT]

but i'm sick of people bagging it out soo much and not recognising the skill (espesially on this forum). The few video's of cuircut racing from members here i've seen shows me quite clearly that they dont have the skill to drift (ie car starts to spin and there is no/little attempt to correct it and a spin occurs).

No disagreement here. Well said and I'm a circuit racer!!

[Casey]

The few video's of cuircut racing from members here i've seen shows me quite clearly that they dont have the skill to drift (ie car starts to spin and there is no/little attempt to correct it and a spin occurs).

Here's an image of the end of a big power oversteer slide (I'm old-school, so to me a drift is when all four wheels are pointed in the same direction and the car's attitude is solely controlled by throttle position). Pity the photograph wasn't taken a bit earlier when I had an armful of opposite lock wound on

After passing the RX8 near the end of the front straight the car was well off line into the kink. This meant a too tight entry into turn two, and a lurid power oversteer slide from the apex to the exit.

Many of us old QLD members (Ted, Mazlot, Abyss and I seem to be all that are left) used to have monthly Friday night sessions at the Mt Cotton skid pan. Great fun, and we got plenty of practice on how to initiate, control and recover from an oversteer slide.



Image courtesy of Oz Event Photo.

[Sheck]

Nice pic!!!

yea there are many different opinions on what is a proper drift, but that doesnt really matter.

I've been to mt cotton plenty of times too, its great fun and dont get me wrong here but its nothing like drifting on dry (and no diesel) ashphalt, as i'm sure you know and have experienced in your track time. It's a whole diferent level of skill needed to control that, and i'm pretty confident in saying many of the experienced guys here would know how to handle themselves in that situation.

And drift in the current motorsport form (ie drift before during and after-into-the-next corner) is another level above what you can experience in a race situation. That said, for the better/experienced guys out there it would only take a bit of practice and the right hardware to get it right consistently

Anyway i'm sure that in the nature of the original title of this thread its probably a good idea to continue this on a separate thread (if need be)
Or if the mods could cut out all my bitching from this thread and put it into another thread titled along the lines of "Drift opinions" or something similar that would be great!!!!

Dave

PS sorry for thread jacking!!!!!

[devolutio]

a little bit further off topic.. but has anyone got any pics of mx5s that have rolled (without rollbars)? i'm curious what that window frame can withstand.

[devolutio]

never mind... got my mx5 last night... probably shouldn't have looked at these pics

[Babalouie]

...rollcages are your friend...

[JBT]

The style bar (?) on the top yellow car seems to have survived OK and not collapsed.

[Babalouie]

The style bar (?) on the top yellow car seems to have survived OK and not collapsed.

It's hard to see from this angle but I think it might have folded back a smidge?

[Matty]

As it happens, I was waiting at the local takeaway on Sunday night and picked up a recent copy of Import Performance to flick through. It had an article on wheel spacers, trying to help people understand what happens when you put them on your car. They were talking BIG spacers 1" (25mm) kinds of sizes. Not once did they mention the hub collar, or anything to do with supporting the weight of the car. In their opinion the main reason that you put spacers on was to fit deep dish rims and still clear the inside of the wheel from your suspension, not the brake system. Apparently deep dish it is THE look from Japan, accentuated by fitment of smaller tyres than the rim is designed for so the tyre sort-of leans inward from the rim edge.

OMG you completely summed up a car that was at my mechanic's the other day...

Eunos roadster import, big flares, (Greddy turbo) & Veilside bodykit, 195/50-15s on ~8" wide rims, 2 x 10mm spacers on the rear, 1 x 10mm + 2 x 5mm spacers on the front... (that's per side!) not that pretty...