paging yzf996fltri...wheel spacer questions
 

I have succumbed to wheel envy and will be getting some OZ SL's for my allroad. Since I'll need to run wheel spacers, I want to get an idea whatyour spacer set-up might be.

Are your spacers hub-centric and wheel-centric? Who makes them? Are they 15 mm? Where did you get them? What is the center bore diameter of the wheels?

Remember, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Thanks for the help-
-df

I'm already imitating him.
 

I ahve the same 15mm H&R spacers on order. They are both hub-centric AND wheel-centric. This is the only way they will work properly. I have not gotten mine yet, but yzf996 seems very happy.

Got an H&R part number? Who have you ordered from?

Sorry, I guess I could have been more helpful. Until yzf comes around this may be helpful...
 

The H&R part number for the 15mm spacer is HR30255571. I was going to order it from my local tuner, but they just drop ship from H&R and charge full MSRP ($95) plus shipping. So I decided to look around online and found Options Auto Salon sells them for $19 less per pair ($76.)

Keep in mind that you need to buy lug bolts that are 15mm longer than the stock ones AND have the correct head seat shape for the wheels you are running.

<img src="http://www.hrsprings.com/site/products/images/spacers2.jpg"><ul><li><a href="http://www.optauto.com/webstore/product_information.asp?number=HR30255571&amp;vari ation=&amp;aitem=11&amp;mitem=16&amp;back=yes&amp; dept=409">Link here, but keep in mind that the pic is generic and not of this specific application</a

Can't be hard for a machinest to make those! Should have someone send me a set
 

and I'll have my machinest friend give me a cost price to make them..

Ya ya copying someone elses design yada yada, but there is no patent and they didn't invent the spacer sooooo.. &lt;shrugs&gt;

Tory

I got mine from Achtuning.
 

They are FK. 15mm Hub centric on both sides, spacer to hub and wheel to spacer. The spacers bolt to the hub with their own bolts. Then you bolt the wheel to the spacer in seperately tapped holes. I haven't mounted them yet because I'm trying to find the tool to mount the spacers. It's a 1/2" drive socket with a 10mm hex key sticking out ( like an allen wrench). I've only been able to find 3/8" drive, but need 1/2" so I can torque them to 90 lb/ft.

Oh, greaaaaat.....
 

...wait until I order the overpriced lumps of metal and <b>THEN</b> tell us about your machinist friend. Oh well.

How about you work on my product idea - design a spacer that is made up of layers of identical and interlocking thin spacers of maybe 2 or 3mm thickness. You could then make a crap load of them and use them to produce any thickness spacer anybody might want. If they need 12mm, then sell 'em 4 3mm interlocking spacers. Each one would be hub-centric on one side and wheel-centric on the other which would make then spacer-centric to each other.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'm going to go find a machinist friend.

They are hub-centric on one side and wheel-centric on the other.
 

I consider that spacer. In fact, I traded emails with Josh and he pointed me in that direction. What Josh recomends is the FK system B.

<img src="http://www.fknorthamerica.com/images/products//spurverbreiterung_system-b1_big.jpg">

I find that solution less desirable for three reasons. First is the fact that your wheel is only held to the car by the threads cut into that alloy spacer. It certainly is not as stout as the steel hub, not that I have heard of any failures or problems. FK makes another product called System B+ that has steel thread inserts pressed into the spacer, but I do not think Josh offers this one. Plus it would be more $$$.

Second is the additional work required to swap to/from winter wheels. This of course is a non factor if you run the same wheels year round.

Third is the cost. For a 15mm spacer you can get a non-bolt-to-hub (FK Type A) solution for less coin. In fact, FK's own North American web site only lists a type A for 15mm.

In the end I can't see why they use a Type B (bolt to hub) spacer in the 15mm thickness. For larger 25+mm thicknesses it is the only viable solution, but for 15mm the plain (type A in FK speak) is better IMO.

The above is based soley on my random thought process, not real world testing/experience. Further, I mean nothing negative toward Josh and Achtuning as they are a valuable contributor to the Audi community and in fact they even pay attention to us allroaders!!

the OZ's use a centering ring. you use the ring for the stock hub with no spacer......
 

and you use the ring with the spacers. I'm using 15mm hubcentic H&amp;R's. so the spacers are hubcentric and wheelcentric to the stock wheel. make sence? I'll have to check what lenght my lug bolts are....it took a little trial and error.....

It sounds good at first, but...
 

by stacking up multiple parts that concentrically self-locate to the previous part, you're adding up the location tolerances. You'd end up increasing the wheel to spindle float (maximum possible eccentricity or runout) by 3-4X, which could show up as some serious imbalance. It would be hard to manage, as it could appear and disappear randomly with every dismount of the wheel.

If you made the nesting features tight enough to try to overcome the tolerance stackup, you'd probably have trouble getting them together with any amount of road grime in the mix - plus you'd have to pay $$$ for parts machined to that precision.

No offense, and I hope that's not too preachy - I'm just trying to save you a few-hundred-dollar experiment! (And I used to do tolerance analysis in automotive engineering.)