cema93

After some digging I think I found what I want to do to finish my car up. I think I'm gonna get an hid kit and go for 6000k for some bright white light, 1.5 in wheel spacers and 1.5 in lowering springs. I guess ill try and sell my gt500 springs to help counter the cost of the new springs. Any opinions on wheel spacers? These will be hub centric btw

05 Mustang

Sounds like a nice various list of modifications.

As far as wheel spacers....a lot of people run them to push the rear wheels out some for a better stance appearance....I personally don't know, never had them.

Norm Peterson

Relatively narrow wheels/tires pushed way out to the sheetmetal may look OK from the side, but ill-fitting and kind of scrawny from either the front or rear.

If it's a flush appearance that you're after, why not just get wheels that are wide enough and with a reasonable offset instead, and then run wider tires?


No, I don't like most spacers, none at all if they're only being used for appearance purposes or because of buying a big brake kit that doesn't clear the spokes of the wheels. Spacers either compromise the length of thread engagement if they don't bolt separately to the hub (and the wheels bolt to them) or they involve a separate set of lug nuts that aren't easy to check for tightness.


I did say "most spacers". I do need to use exactly one spacer with one of my 18 x 11 front wheels. It's only 0.6 mm thick (0.025"), and I'm not all that crazy about having to use even that. But it was enough to eliminate a tire to strut rub under moderately hard and harder cornering.


Norm

cema93

For the springs, would I need to adjust any suspension geometry? Or will it be ok to just throw them on?

Norm Peterson

Sure. Axle centering and camber & toe adjustments can always be done separately if necessary (and sometimes they are not). If you can find a flat area to sit the car on, you can even measure camber yourself, compare it to spec (or possibly a different setting to better suit your own driving), and go from there just like you would with axle centering.


Norm

cema93

i did some measuring last night to gauge how i should go about getting wheel spacers. i was really suprised because all the photos i have seen dont come close to how far mine would stick out. ill end up going with 1 inch and save $50

krazykevin

Looking at your car, i would not get wheel spacers. You may run into issues with your wheels hitting you fenders. (OP seems to be on aftermarket wheels already) lower it and then re-evaluate on the spacers.

Genxer

1 inch thick spacers? How much thread engagement would that leave you on the studs? I would be nervous about that setup. Also what does that do to the load on your wheel bearings with the added leverage against them?

Norm Peterson

If what I found by searching under 18" Foose Nitrous wheels" is correct, then your wheels have only a +30 mm offset, which means that those wheels are really intended for the SN95 Mustang. The only good reason for using offsets much less than about +42 on a S197 is when you're buying front wheels that are more than 10" wide (for strut clearance reasons).

Now you want to effectively change that to +5 mm by adding 25mm spacers. That's 45 mm less that the OE 18 x 8.5 wheels plus half of the difference between your 9" and the 8.5" - or over two whole inches. Never mind that your tires may be wider than 235/50's.


Norm

cema93

I ordered the spacers and springs yesterday afternoon (AM please be fast!!) so ill get to see how things go and report back. Ill have my buddy at ford do the springs for me then ill add the spacers at home and see what we r dealing with. worse case scenario is that the spacers dont work out and i send them back to AM for a refund. no biggie. pretty excited. havent ordered new parts in a while.