PowerLabs

With my apologies to Spin for using his format on my title, but it was just too tempting

If you've followed my posts, you already know I am absolutely in love with the widened 18 x 11" C6 wheels I am running on the back; they allow me to run god's own tires and the car hooks up in ways I never thought possible.
As Spin (the pioneer of this fantastic mod) pointed out, the front wheels are already 4mm closer to the fender than the factory 19s. For me, however, it still looked like the fender wells weren't filled in quite enough:





The OTHER issue, is that with the car completely jacked up, the wheels touched the top of one of the corners of the control arm. I carefully filed a radius there to reduce the interference.

Corvette Forum member "Gotcha" suggested I could remedy both these minor issues (if you want to call it that) and graciously offered me a set of wheel spacers he machined himself as a solution. These are 1/4" wide, and as you can see, the workmanship is top notch!



The spacers move the rear wheels out to the point where they fill the wheelwells completely (remember that the tire rolls INTO the wheelwell due to negative camber, so it will never touch even when the suspension is fully compressed):




The control arm STILL needs to be notched with these though, so if you wanted to run a widened 18 x 11 rim, and were planning to run spacers so that the control arm didn't touch it when the car was jacked up, you're out of luck. How do I know? I only filed enough material so I could install and remove the factory wheels without compressing the rear suspension; the inner lip of the rim still touched the control arm ever so slightly. And with the spacers, it still does;



I still think it looks much better and want to run them full time, but I need some longer lugs or deeper lugnuts before the package is complete... More to come

PowerLabs

No spacer:


Spacer:


So now I'm trying to decide if I want some slightly longer lugs, or some deeper lugnuts (in black, please ... Any suggestions?

And yes, I know, the car looks really high: its got the stock ride height since I daily drive it and it still scrapes everywhere. I am getting Bilstein Sport shocks, corner balancing the car and then probably dropping it half an inch or so before I do a 4 wheel alignment.

P.S.2... Don't you love those reflections?? I had the car detailed

LS1LT1

A definite improvement in appearance. But yes longer studs should be used because you now have fewer threads holding each lugnut on and that could be (but likely isn't) considered unsafe.

glass slipper

Glad to see you're doing your own alignment. What kind of settings are you going to use for your autocross this weekend? Are you going to do the "mod" to the upper control arms to let you easily go back and forth between street and track alignments? I love the fact that the C4s are already capable of that...15 minutes and I'm ready to race with max grip, another 15 minutes and it's back to the street with max tire life.

Wicked Weasel

You should not have to make a change to your studs with 1/4 inch spacer. I run 1/4 all around when I race so my wheels don't touch my wilwood bbk without an issue.

I have upgraded to gorilla lug nuts which I feel are much more meatier than stock. You could also go with open ended lugs which should give you more room.

After a 1/4 inch you would need longer studs. I would use ARP wheel studs. You will also need to have them pressed into the bearing which means taking it all apart. You could buy new bearings with the longer stud already pressed in. You will probably need to replace yours one day anyway since you autox. Hardbar has new style bearings from vansteel that are far superior to oem and what I am upgrading to once this set of oem are destroyed.


Bob

Wicked Weasel

He is running a street tire so he really doesn't need to go too extreme. Probably get away with an aggressive street alignment like front camber neg 1.5 and rear 1. If he was planning to run a camber challenged tire he would need to make some changes otherwise his street tires or race tires would turn to crap quickly.

Gotcha

Glad to help

It looks like the spacers offset the wheels just right for the look you wanted

SpinMonster

The ruler on the outside of the fender to show fitment is misleading. The inside fender liner protrudes toward the tire to much to run some tires on the 18x11 rim.

Copyright infringement.

pmj341

I have used some lugs that have more threads on my Monty SS, they are 1/4 longer past the angle on the nut!!!

Gotcha

, called ET Lug Nuts, they have more threads than regular lugs. I know Sam is looking for some, but I think he's having a hard time finding them in black.

Gotcha

adamz28

Would PS2's fit the 18x11's w/ the spacers?

oldmansan

It just depends on the size of the PS2s.

San

cencalc6

Longer wheel studs are not necessary with a 1/4" spacer. Here's my experience with spacers Few months back I hit the drag strip,7 runs launching at 6k rpm's and the wheels still did not fall off

oldmansan

He's not looking to go with longer studs, he wants lug nuts that engage more of the threads on the studs. Wheels not falling off is a good thing.

San

PowerLabs

That is great to know! Thanks

oldmansan

Sam,
Someone in your other thread suggesting calling John at CCW as he had some "long reach lug nuts" that might help you out. I talked to John today and when I inquired about lug nuts he's not a big fan of lightweight lug nuts.

San

SpinMonster

Randy@ DRM had said that wheels spaced wider apart are bad for handling. I hope he gets the chance to comment. The original comment of this was in a thread talking about Z06 fenders and wider rears. Possibly it has to do with not moving the rears and fronts together or in proportion and I misunderstood him.

Wicked Weasel

I know plenty of people that run small spacers on just the rear. I did for sometime. I didn't notice a difference in handling although I doubt I ever push my car to the edge so a little less handling would not matter.

Maybe the 1/2 inch spacer on the rear only would make a difference but 1/4 doesn't seem like much.

I would also think that adding spacers will add more stress to the bearings since you are moving weight out.

I like to hear randy's thoughts. Maybe I will call phoenix today and ask Joe or Kurt.

glass slipper

I've heard of tires for "camber challenged" cars, but what is a "camber challenged" tire???

I'm sure you know there's a lot more to alignments than just camber. What works on a high speed road course will not work on an autocross course (and vice-versa). He needs a lot of front toe-out (in addition to the negative camber) on an autocross course especially since he already said his front tires are smaller than he wanted and it understeers at the limit. Throw in some toe-out and he'll be amazed at the transformation of the handling dynamics of his car. Toe is more of a factor in tire wear on the street and can shred a tire in less than 500 miles if running an excessive amount. An excessive amount of camber on the street will just wear the inside/outside of the tire, you'll still get a lot of miles out of the tires. The control arm "mod" will give him the desired results of great handling on the autocross course while keeping his tires from quickly turning to crap on the street due to the toe-out. The time required is minimal especially with a battery powered drill/impact wrench.