You are right. A bunch of opinions.

 

I also read a lot of those issues, and I feel like I have taken the proper precautions to avoid them. For instance, Ichiba spacers are aluminum, so I took my wheels off after 100miles and re-torqued the nuts, then did it again at 250. A few of them were definitely able to be tightened down more after driving 100miles. Today I did it a third time around 500miles, and they were all solid. I will continue to check them with every routine maintenance. This is an important step that most people who had problems had neglected.

As for the manufacturing of the spacers, they're precision milled and balanced, and the lugs are rated at far more stress/force than required for our cars. I also measured the full wheel travel when turned to each lock, and found that 15mm spacers with stock wheels are incapable of rubbing with an Eibach drop. They're close, but will allow ~1cm of clearance at full travel.

As for the additional stress/strain on suspension components, I don't think 15mm spacers are significant enough to exceed the engineered limits of any particular component. I'm more worried about my Eibach's prematurely wearing my shocks than my spacers effecting anything else.

But if you know of any other harmful consequences of running spacers, tell me what they are!! I'd like to be fully aware of any potentially dangerous situations, so that I can do my due diligence to avoid problems down the road.

 

Andrew,

I think for the purpose of how you are using them, they are fine. I'm considering them myself strictly for looks. However, for track use, I would most likely remove them just to be safe. Like you stated, if properly maintained, one should not have any issues.

 

Looks great Andrew!! I'm definitely going with te Ichibas as soon as possible (getting my Prokit installed tomorrow). Didn't know about re-torquing the lugs after 100 miles. Is all that really necessary?

 

As Andrew mentioned, you should always recheck the torque on the bolts for alum spacers just like you are suppose to do on alum wheels. This, and use of non-hubcentric spacers, seem to be the biggest source of most of the reported problems.

In researching, I found a couple of other suggestions. The hub surface upon which the wheel spacer will be mounted shouldbe clean of surface corrosion. You can also use a thin film of grease or anti-seize compound on the face of the wheel hub to aid in the future removal of the spacer.

 

Cool Hamster, thanks for the info!

 

DAMN YOU HAMPSTERS!!! I was just too darn lazy to deal with scraping all that corrosion off the hub... Perhaps I have identified the cause of my slight vibration... Now I'm going through the internal mental debate of whether or not it's bothering me enough to take them back off and do it right... I'll probably try to tell myself it's no big deal for a week... DAMN!! Looks like I'm re-installing them this weekend!! It's all your fault Hampsters!!

 

And Sears sells nice torque wrenches.

 

looks good.

ive always been scared of spacers too but i know enough people that track with them that ive gotten over it.

be careful tightening down too much or you can warp your rotors.