BrandonsZ Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 I got the Toyota 4x4 brakes a year ago and found it impossible to fit over the original 14x5 steel wheels. So I got some 1" spacers added to the car and off I went. Well, I could never balance the front tires, it seemed even with new tires, there was an uneven, unpredictable amount of tire shake in the steering. They felt out of balance, severly at times, but even after I balanced and rotated, no effect. Sometimes they felt perfect, then off then perfect again on different days. It certainly wasn't like that on the stock setup without spacers. So I lived with out-of-balance feeling tires for about a year. Wednesday I was on the freeway going about 65 in light traffic and my tire blew, shreaded, completely unglued. Of course the car is nicely controllable because it's balanced well so I managed to pull off the freeway. By the time I got to the nearest safe spot to park and change the tire I heard horrible grinding, pounding, and bumping noises. I managed to take the old wheel off, put on the spare and when I was tightening the lugs, after a certain point they just spun and spun, well, the studs were stripped and I was unable to take the spare back off, nor tighten the lugs properly. I limped home with a horrible grinding, and banging noise from the tire. The short of it is, my 2" studs which were needed to place on those spacers on were rocked back and fourth during the blowout and stripped them out. After 6 hours of drilling and nasty dissassembly, I managed to seperate the wheel from the hub. At the expense of the hub. Luckily I have a set of spare hubs. I will never trust spacers again, I was told the ones that bolt on were dangerous, but the sandwiched ones are just as bad. Seriuosly this is rediculous, a blowout has forced me to replace a hub and buy rims that fit over these 4x4 brakes. If I had my option a year ago, I would not have upgraded to 4x4 brakes. Even Stock 15x6 aluminum rims off a 1983 Z did not fit over these brakes wihtout 1/8-1/4" spacing. 4x4 brake upgrade for marginally better braking *thumbs down* Spacers *thumbs down* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 The problem isn't the brakes. The problem was the longer wheel studs and spacers. I did the upgrade and tried to make them work with the stock steel wheels. I got close by doing some light grinding on the inside of the wheels and on some of the caliper bumps. When this didn't quite get it done, I got some 1/2 inch spacers (you shouldn't have needed 1 inch) but realized the spacers were going to require longer studs. Not liking the sounds of this I just gave up and just went to my 15 inch wheels. They clear fine. Really, any significant brake upgrade is going to require larger diameter wheels anyway, so I don't think it is fair to blame this one on the 4x4 swap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primadonna z Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Sure are a lot of threads on brakes right now. If it helps anyone, I did it the easy, safe way. I called Dave at Arizona Z Car. I have a supercharged V8 car that runs very well. It has the ability to gain substancial velocity in a very short distance, of course this requires alot of ability to reduce that velocity. The car had Willwoods on it when I bought it 11.5"x3/4" vented rotors, 4 piston calipers front. And 10" solid rotor 2 pistons in the rear. Not bad for a z-car, I just wanted more. I needed to replace the front rotors for sure. But my other goals were to replace bearings front, and rear. The more I thought about the project scope, I thought I'll just get the big ones from AZC. They are properly engineered, tested, guaranteed, supported, and everything that you need was included (except 280z hubs, & brake fluid). I will admit the look of these monsters did play a part. I just don't have the time anymore to monkey around with developing, and dialing in a brake system. I wanted big stopping power, and predictable control. It made sense to me to purchase the products, and testing as a package. I am glad that I did, all the components were 1st class, instalation simple, looks great, and they offer repeatably brutal stoping power. BrandonZ brings up some good points to consider. John Coffey has great points as well that come 1st hand. They are derived from his vast experience and testing I'm sure. I just did it differently. Do your homework before you spend the buck...and do it safe. I have cringed more than once in the last week or so reading through some of the post on braking. Here,s some pic's of my set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsunlover Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Personally, I wouldn't 'live' with the "unpredictable amount of tire shake" for long, because shakes like that work things loose. I've seen studs that didn't seat properly. IE' the knurl that is suposed to hold it in the hub is not fully engaged. They 'feel' ok when you put the wheel on, but in reality the lug nut is NOT holding the wheel on properly. A few hundred revolutions at speed will loosen them. I've also had a very close call with the knurl diameter of the studs being too SMALL allowing the stud it-self will spin in the hub. I've also had similar shake issues caused by cheep/badly made spacers. It's amazing how bad a vibration you will get if something is even slightly off center of the hub. 1st question; what were the spacers made of? (steel or aluminum?) 2nd question; How tight did they fit over the hub and studs? 3rd question; Were the spacers centered and consentric? 4th question; How much thread engagement did you have in the lug nuts? I suspect your 2" studs were working side to side and striping BEFORE the blowout. This is a guess, because I don't know the measurments.. but a 2" stud going through the hub, then a 1" spacer, then the steel rim hole (probly about 3/8 thickness from backside of the rim to nut contact point on the outside) MAY not have left a lot of threads for the lug nut to grab... that would be a problem on its own, but if there were other issues (with the spacers?) well.. there may be several problems that contributed to your incident.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 ... what size are those wheels and what tires? and can you send me pics of the side of your car from a bit more of a distance to guage how well they fit the wells. thanks =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primadonna z Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 what size are those wheels and what tires? and can you send me pics of the side of your car from a bit more of a distance to guage how well they fit the wells. thanks =) HRE 17x10 275/40/17 Front Hoosier DOT Autocross Radial HRE 17x13 335/35/17 Rear Hoosier DOT Autocross Radial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudypoochris Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 How long do those tires last on the street? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primadonna z Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 How long do those tires last on the street? Their not really a street tire. I have set of Michelin PS 2's for the street. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparks280zt Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 Prima, you bought eric bernsteins car??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primadonna z Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 Prima, you bought eric bernsteins car??? That would be me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparks280zt Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 Wait, you are Eric Bernstein? Did you move? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nismo280zEd Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 I too have had persona bad experience from Spacers. I bought a set from MMC Ross makes some great products and they are top notch... One day while driving home.. I noticed unusually noise form the rear wheel... get in the driveway and I had sheared one of the studs on the rear spacer. Causing it to chew at the inside of my whee and top of the spacer. This is not Ross's fault, he said it was due to over tightening but i disagree as evertyhing was done with a torque wrench. It was probably just a material flaw in the stud, regardless I'll never run spacers that bolt on again. 16x7 konigs that bolt up for me thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonsZ Posted January 5, 2007 Author Share Posted January 5, 2007 1st question; what were the spacers made of? (steel or aluminum?) 2nd question; How tight did they fit over the hub and studs? 3rd question; Were the spacers centered and consentric? 4th question; How much thread engagement did you have in the lug nuts? 1. Magnesium (HKS) I got thru bolt so that I wouldn't worry about the spacer coming apart... plus I couldn't readily get the bolt on ones. 2, 3. They were a perfect fit over the hub very close tolerance, but the studs had huge clearance holes to go thru, like 1/2" or more. So the studs were basically free to bend over the extra 1" distance. 4. The bolts were 2" the original were 1". 1" spacer had exactly the same thread engagement as stock, a lot. I should have gotten the first clue when I first put on the wheel and it looked out of round, yet the same tire on the back was not out of round. The bolts simply did not self center. I am pinched for cash (right after freekin Christmas) so this is a tough time to buy rims... the credit card bill is going to be tough this month. I should have saved the $100 for the spacers, and ~800 for the brakes and put those toward new rims in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 All you need are good lugcentric spacers for a Z. As said so many times, Z wheels are not hubcentric, so it really doesn't make a difference if the spacers are. Wheel spacers are not the problem here, it's the WRONG wheel spacer that caused this issue in my opinion. I have had issue with the cheapo spacers that you buy at the auto parts store as well, as they are hubcentric and the center hole is just a gnat's ass too small. Over a period of time these also failed, although the only damage was to the spacer. When I went to a lugcentric quality spacer I never had another problem, and I've worked on stockish and race Porsches with WIDE lugcentric spacers as well and never seen or heard of a problem there. One was running a 335/35/18 at 170+ mph on a road course with a 1.5" or 2" spacer. Never changed the spacers, never had any problems with them either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsunlover Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 I forgot to mention that I ran .900" spacers on my Z for about 8 months with NO problems. Although, I built them myself, and made them almost a press fit on the lugs. I had to use 2.250" long studs for the wheels I had (16 x 7 unknown aftermarket 5 spokes) and never bent one. I ran the car past 120mph quite a few times, and generaly thrashed it around hard corners on a daily basis.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cody 82 ZXT Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 Just for what it's worth I've had a set of Ross's spacers 1.5" on my ZX for about 5 years now. I've done all kinds of racing and many hard street miles with them on. Personally, I think that anything of 3/4" needs to be the bolt on kind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2003z Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 I agree with Cody. I run bolt on spacers too, though not from Ross, but high quality lug-centric ones. When my car is running its a weekend track car, and I've had no problems. The kind the original poster had with much larger holes for the studs than the actual stud are next to impossible to center, and just a little off would cause that problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nismoztune Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 l the space on the wheels on this car for is the one you mentioned : 5" on front 4.25 on rear. This set up will be okay for stock suspencion and brakes? Primadonna z (this is the best Z car a ever see.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primadonna z Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 l the space on the wheels on this car for is the one you mentioned : 5" on front 4.25 on rear. This set up will be okay for stock suspencion and brakes? Primadonna z (this is the best Z car a ever see.) Yes, in the Imsa body link the wheels sizes that I outlined were the ones for this car. This car has big brakes, and Koni coil overs, so I don't know about stock suspension clearance. Brakes will not be an issue. Rog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nismoztune Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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