Wheel spacers for 3.2 Carrera

[Poopwink]

I'm looking at throwing some wheel spacers on my narrowbody Carrera to fill some of the gap at the fender. I'm running 16" Fuchs, 6" wide fronts with 205/55 and 7" rears with 225/50 tires. If you're running something similar, could you share your specs and what spacers you're using? Seems wasteful to order a ton of different sizes just to see what fits best. Thanks!

[Ian Comerford]

21mm at the rear and 7mm at the front

[zztot]

My guess is that if you go 21in rear you may need longer studs. Perhaps someone wiser than I should confirm.

[Ian Comerford]

I have 21mm on the rear of mine and the studs are integral to the spacer. Not an unusual construct

[Bill Douglas]

Or get some 8" wheels for the back. They fill out the fenders nicely.

I wouldn't worry about the front.

[josephvman]

Timely post, since I'm also thinking the same on my '84 Targa with 16" Fuchs. I'd rather not go down the rabbit hole and expense of chasing down 9" Fuchs for the rear and buying new tires. Are there any downsides or changes in handling using spacers? Is a fresh alignment necessary? Does anyone have pics of a 3.2 with stock bodywork and 21mm spacer in the rear? Any clearance issues?


This is what I had in mind. Would you go with silver or black anodized spacers?

https://www.motorsport-tech.com/4DCGI/selectedCarsDesignType

[sky1jord]

FWIW, I use these

H&R TRAK+ 28mm Hub-Centric Wheel Spacer Pair Bolt Pattern 5:130mm, Center Bore 71.6mm, Thread Type 14x1.5, DRM Style

Pelican Part #: HR-5695716

on standard 7 X 16 Fuchs rears on my '88. No rubbing or other problems.
Fronts are stock 6 X 16 no spacers

[josephvman]

Thanks, very helpful! Which tires do you run and is the car lowered at all. It’s definitely to err at on the conservative side and was thinking 21mm, but your car looks great.

Originally Posted by sky1jord

FWIW, I use these

H&R TRAK+ 28mm Hub-Centric Wheel Spacer Pair Bolt Pattern 5:130mm, Center Bore 71.6mm, Thread Type 14x1.5, DRM Style

Pelican Part #: HR-5695716

on standard 7 X 16 Fuchs rears on my '88. No rubbing or other problems.
Fronts are stock 6 X 16 no spacers

[darrin]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Or get some 8" wheels for the back. They fill out the fenders nicely.

I wouldn't worry about the front.

True, but you can also move the 7" Fuchs currently sitting on the rear end to the front, which will nicely fill in the front fenders (but may require rolling the front fender lips)

[darrin]

Originally Posted by josephvman

Timely post, since I'm also thinking the same on my '84 Targa with 16" Fuchs. I'd rather not go down the rabbit hole and expense of chasing down 9" Fuchs for the rear and buying new tires. Are there any downsides or changes in handling using spacers? Is a fresh alignment necessary? Does anyone have pics of a 3.2 with stock bodywork and 21mm spacer in the rear? Any clearance issues?


This is what I had in mind. Would you go with silver or black anodized spacers?

https://www.motorsport-tech.com/4DCGI/selectedCarsDesignType

FWIW, 8" Fuchs sit out just about as far as the 9" Fuchs do (much of the 9" Fuchs extra width sits inside of the hub) and work great with 225/50-16 tires.

Alignment isn't an issue, I regularly swapped between 16x6f 16x7r winter wheels and 16x7f and 16x8r summer wheels w/o issue (handling remains the same and tire wear remains even).

My 16x8 rear Fuchs sit around an inch closer to the fender lip than my 16x7 rears do, so adding a 21mm spacer to your 16x7 rears would move the rear tires out about the same amount (though the wider 8" wheels allow the rear tire to spread out better, resulting in a flatter rear sidewall). NO clearance issues with the rear wheels in this situation for me (86 targa) at all, though running 16x7 Fuchs with 205/55-16 tires on the front may require rolling/trimming of the front fender's inner lips.

[LJ851]

Fuchs 16x6, 7 and 8 all have the same backspace. Each wider size sticks out towards the fender 1 inch more than the size below it.

For the rear, a 16x7 with a 1 inch or 25mm spacer will fit great and fill the fender like an 8 inch wheel.

For the 16x6 on the front I would use a 12mm-ish spacer to put the wheel about halfway closer to the fender compared to a 16x7. The 16x7 fitment as mentioned earlier can require fender modifications as it sticks out “too far” for completely stock bodywork.

[zztot]

Not a fan of spacers with integrated studs BUT probably ok for street car…..
Really need to be sure inner nuts are properly torqued otherwise you are courting a problem. Just my 2 cents.

[Tinkerer]

I added 25mm on rear and 12mm front spacers on my 991.1 and noticed a difference in cornering. Any chance that’s going to be the same case if just adding 20mm to the rear on my ‘84 Targa?

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by darrin

True, but you can also move the 7" Fuchs currently sitting on the rear end to the front, which will nicely fill in the front fenders (but may require rolling the front fender lips)

Haha, truth be told, that's what I did do. The car looks cute sitting slightly lower than normal and wheels filling out the fenders.

[sky1jord]

Originally Posted by josephvman

Thanks, very helpful! Which tires do you run and is the car lowered at all. It’s definitely to err at on the conservative side and was thinking 21mm, but your car looks great.

Thanks.
Suspension is totally stock as are the rear tire sizes (225/50X16)

Wish i had more to show the fit, but this is about it.



Don't forget, the right side "fender-filling" effect will be less noticeable, because most (all?) SC's and 3.2's bodies don't fit square to the rear wheels, at least according to discussions on this forum.

[proporsche]

I have on mine past 26 year 8th front and 9th rear..(front 8th 951 type)
No issue of any rubbing.
front 205/55/16
rear 245/45/16

[Tinkerer]

Originally Posted by zztot

My guess is that if you go 21in rear you may need longer studs. Perhaps someone wiser than I should confirm.

Your guess is correct, ordered the 20mm Renn’s from host that said they were a fit for my ‘84 and the studs are too short. Rather than putting longer studs in I’ll probably seek out the 8” eventually

[josephvman]

Any advantage/disadvantage to spacers with the integrated studs?

[rattlsnak]

I'm cleaning out the garage and was just getting to list these for sale.. Any interest?

[darrin]

Originally Posted by josephvman

Any advantage/disadvantage to spacers with the integrated studs?

As zztot indicated above, it's difficult to check/confirm that the studs going from the hub to the spacer remain tight (you could only check these by removing the wheel from the spacer). Were the nuts attaching the spacer to the hub to loosen, the spacer/wheel would detach from hub (i.e. the wheel would fall off, even though the nuts attaching the wheels to the spacers were tight.