debating wheel spacers and thought of a question I'm not clear on - does wheel spacers, specifically what seems like the "standard" 7mm front and 15mm rear, materially change the handling characteristics of our TT/S porsches?

any other pros/cons in general?

*edit - I know in theory wheel spacers widen the track and can help how a car corners, but really asking based on practical experience here from fellow turbo owners if you really do feel much difference? especially any negatives like heavier steering?
I'm just looking at spacers for looks.

 

You will not notice the weight of a 7mm spacer up front in regards to steering. As far as detrimental effects, increase in unsprung weight will negatively effect braking dynamics. But you'll unlikely see that in day to day driving.

 

Put 15mm hub-centric spacers on in the rear, nothing in front. Have not noticed any change in ride characteristics. Wheels perfectly fit the shape of the car now. No regrets.

 

Thanks. I didn't think of that - was looking at the RSS set on Suncoast site and just assumed if you used spacers should do both front / rear

I had 5mm OEM spacers once that came with a 996 I bought off showroom floor long ago - always wondered why Porsche oem was only 5mm vs aftermarket

 

My guesstimate is that only the top 3-5% of drivers would be able to tell the difference in the way the car handles based on spacers alone. Do it for looks and you'll be 100% happy

 

I agree with this statement ^^^.

What I did was do the same thickness spacers front and rear to keep whatever wheelbase Porsche had from the factory the same F&R, just 6mm wider. I figured that it would be minimal, if any, as far as affecting handling.

 

I am looking into buying some spacers too but what i don't want is the wheels pushed out all so much so that they would actually be sticking out of the fenders

Can some one post any pictures of their car from the rear showing how the wheels look with the spacers ?

I am personally more inclined towards 5/10 or 12 combo ...

Thanks

 

I sell them all the time, no complaints from anyone. The only issue would be that the front 7mm are nut hub-centric (they are too skinny for the pilot to be machined in), so you just need to be careful tightening them down to make sure everything is centered like it should be. No worries overall though with 7 and 15..

Larger adapters (20mm+, bolt to hub, wheel bolts to adapter) can change how the wheel distributes the weight of the car on the drivetrain and could potentially be a problem on some cars. I don't personally recommend going beyond 18mm. Beyond that, most of the time what people are trying to do is finding a band-aid for an improperly fitting wheel.

 

I'm not yet knowledgeable with Porsches yet (picking mine up in a couple of weeks, w00t!), but in the M3 world (E9X model line specifically), wheel spacers sometimes had a negative effect on the ride characteristics. Many spacers would cause vibration and steering wheel shake at speeds over 80mph. This also happened sometimes in the S2000 world. I assumed that this was due to modifying something so in-touch with the road on a relatively high performance car (i.e.: throwing spacers on a Buick would have no effect).

Driving a few Turbos in stock form, the car already is so tight and firm. I would imagine that spacers may affect the car even more than the S2000/M3. Are any of you experiencing any vibration? I would love to put some spacers on the rear of the Turbo.

 

I bought the car with 20mm spacers all around and only found out after 1 year of owning the car. Done 10,000Km without any problems.
I only found out that i had big spacers because i decided to change the brakes. (I could extend the CPO warranty with this spacers but not if i changed the brakes to a better ones. Dumb warranty)



The wheels stick out alot but it doesn't look that bad if the car is at stock height.


My next wheels are going to be ET53 front and ET40 at the back... 3mm wider in front and 11mm wider at the back.
-4mm from the desire 7mm front and 15mm back. I hope it will look good without spacers because i don't want extra weight.

 

Before i changed the brakes my car didn't have any vibration with the 20mm spacers but now i have some vibration at high speed (+200Km/h)
I didn't have the car aligned after the brake instalation, i hope that's the problem

 

Spacers that are not hubcentric or that are just too big ( anything over 15mm) can technically cause all sorts of issues esp the vibration.

Porsche from the factory ( some one correct me if i am wrong ) is well known to use spacers on some of their models with out any ill effects

 

I believe the largest and only factory OEM / t-equipment spacers are 5mm though? ( not 100% sure but that's all I see in catalog)

Might just get OEM 5mm but wondering if you can even tell the looks difference. Looking for some before/after 5mm spacer photos

 

moz - here are a few pics with the 15mm hub centric rear spacers installed

 

+1

thks!

(love your license plate too, go PCA!)