Wheel Spacers

[Prawn]

Has anyone fitted wheel spacers to an S4.
My thought is that a wider track will assist with handling.
I am thinking of between 6mm and 15mm.

Any comment ?

[Prawn]

I'll take that as a no then.

[Joshie]

If I fitted spacers to my RS4 replicas (35mm ofset) they would protrude beyond the arches. I guess that spacers could be fitted to the Avus wheels to widen the track but I'm not sure what the benefits would be in terms of handling improvements.

Someone must have done it though - probably stateside [img]images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Rob_O]

A buddy of mine ran 10mm spacers (H&R) on his S4 Avant with OE 17" Avus. Aesthetically it gave the car a more aggressive stance, notably different from stock ET45 offset. Not sure if there was a detectable gain in performance.

FWIW ... he's a regular on AudiWorld, even though he's since sold his Avant, and posts under the screen name 'CraigB'

[Prawn]

Cheers Chaps,
Think I'll save my money on that one then [img]images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[Thorney]

However, Audi build such massive tolerances into the design and engineering (hence we can chip these things so effectively) that there is plenty of leeway.

I also found that post putting the Sportecs on mine (with spacers) that the feels a lot more 'planted' in tighter bends (I'm thinking Donington here).

I'm sure a lot of this was down to tyres etc, but was still a noticeable improvement.

[Thorney]

I have to say I was expecting the handling to in many ways be worsened by putting 19" wheels on (on a Caterham you go for the smallest wheels possible - transforms the car) but the exact opposite happened.

The (much) wider rubber does effect steering at slow speeds but I haven't noticed any additional tramlining. It was Donington that made me smile. On P Zeros (which I accept are utter crap) at Hockenheim (when it was dry) I was sideways all over the place - great fun but a bit hairy. At Donny with diff wheels/rubber I couldn't get the bastard thing to kick out once [img]images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Not sure if thats good or bad really [img]images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[Prawn]

Ok, now I am getting confused [img]images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

My thoughts were based around my experience with a home built single seater sprint car.
Certainley adding a wider track to that car (admittedly using longer wishbones not spacers) made the car feel much more 'planted' in quick corners.
For the cost involved, about £20/30 for spacers and about the same again for longer bolts I think it may be worth a try.
Will keep you posted.
As an aside, has anyone converted from wheel bolts to studs, certainly this would make life easier with spacers ?