I know my fare share about cars but I am by no means a pro.. One thing I was wondering about is offset.. People are always talking about the offset they run with their rims.. What is offset and what is it good for? Also.. Spacers?? Outside of the forum I never really hear of spacers.. Any insight to bring me another step farther from noob-ness would be greatly appreciate and rep will be rewarded.

 

check www.tirerack.com technical area. they explain wheel offset.

basically the smaller the positive offset number, the closer the wheels are pushed towards the inside of the fender.

stock wheels are +55 and wheels are tucked in the wheel well. if you run +40 like me, the wheels are more flush to the fender and looks good when lowered and have some benefits of a wider foot print (stance).

 

Thank yousir.. I knew the spacers were for pushing the tires out I just didn't knew exactly what a normal spacer size was and such.. And I'll check out tirerack..

 

Offset basically tells you where the wheel face sits with in the rim. 0 offset is center and +/- is forward or back from the center.

 

Why would. You want the tire to sit more forward or backward on the rim?

 

this pic might explain it better.

 

i understand that it sits either closer to or further from the face of the rim but why would you want that?

 

for the exact same wheels differing in their offsets alone: the more negative the offset, the further the outer lip of the mounted wheel protrudes from the vehicle.

just imagine mounting each of those three wheels above onto the same car and imagine how each wheel would give the car a wider or narrower stance. if you had some massively negative offset wheels, your stance could be so wide that they'd be poking out from underneath your fenders. if you still don't get it, you can just look at websites like hellaflush.com to see one of the uses of offset.

 

Proper offset is critical because it also determines if the wheel will "sit" properly with respect to the car's bodywork. Another word for this is "clearance." Using the wrong wheel offset for the car can result in rubbing against bodywork like fenders and fender liners.

Generally front-drive cars like most Hondas require high offsets. Rear-drive cars and old-school Japanese cars in contrast should run low or even negative offset wheels.

Basically it depends which car the wheels are going to be mounted on.

 

First of all, wheel spacers are a no-no! Wheel spacers are last resort. And if you have to use them, no thicker than 6-mm (half the wheel lug diameter). If you need to go thicker, then you need one with wheel studs…that is you bolt the spacer with the studs to the hub and then the wheel to the new spacers.

FYI, I’ve got 3-mm spacers on my car to clear the Integra Type-R front disc brakes I’m running on my car. But that required replacing the original wheel studs with longer ones for proper lug nut engagement.

Do not just look at the wheel! You have to look at the whole suspension system. Since the Fit has a McPherson type suspension, I will only address that type of suspension system here. If you draw an imaginary line from the top of the shock tower to the lower ball joint (that is almost inline with the shock absorber, but not quite) and extend it down to the road surface, it will land right in the center of your tire’s contact patch. Once you start screwing with the diameters and wheel spacing, you will screw up the handling. If you run the ame diameter tire and just reduce the wheel’s back spacing, your suspension’s geometry line will move to the inside of the tire. Under hard acceleration it will tend to increase your toe-in and under braking give you toe-out and poor stability. In my case, I’m running larger diameter tires to compensate for the 3-mm wheel spacer.