Styling Yet Another Wheel Question

[GeX]

Righty, i have to admit that i am quite stumped on this which is annoying cos I am menna be able to figure this stuff out quite easily.

I used to have some Seicento Sporting Abarth wheels on my car. These are the 14" wheels with 185/50/R14 fitted.

I recently purchased some Oz Superturismo WRC's from ebay. These are also 14" and have the same tyres as my previous wheels.

The fronts seem to fit fine. They are sat on the existing Abarth 10mm spacers and so far have had no probs.
But, I am having all sorts of problems getting the rears to fit properly. I had to buy some 9.5mm spacers (all i could find)for the rear so that they cleared the inner bodywork. They now seem to catch on the outer edge of the arches though.

I have read through the sticky thats in the technical section, and looked at the tyre bible too. From the tyre bible I decided to go look at what numbers were stamped on my wheels, old and new.

The first pic on the attachments is from the Abarth wheels. I am guessing that the 6.5 is the wheel width in inches and the 36 is the offset. ( the others are speed ratings, size and bead type).

The next two pics are from the Oz's. All the numbers are the same except its a 6" wheel not 6.5". Why then do i need to have spacers in place if the offsets are the same for both wheel types?

Can someone help me and say what size spacers i need cos this really has me stumped and i dont want to go trial and error to find the correct spacer width.

Thanks.
GeX

 

[GhostWKD]

well the new wider wheels may result in different offset required, i know my 6x13 wheels have a silly low offset of 24 but fit fantastic on the back without spacers (needed spacers front mind to clear the calipers, about 8mm spacers)

 

[Bushboy]

the offset on those are 36mm. get some 5mm spacers and it should help. it will bring the wheel in a bit so migh clear the outer arch.

the abarth alloys are only 5.5" wide, those are 6" wide so may scrape is the offset is wrong.. they may even scrape if the offset is right! depends on the wheels, try some 5mm spacers.. halfrauds do them.

to answe your question, you need to have spacers because the new wheels are 1/2 an inch wider and so will hit the inner arch. theoreticaly you should be using 5mm spacers for the abarth ones but you dont need to as they are only 5.5" wide and so clear the arches ok. now that the extra 1/2" has come into play, the inner arches are getting caught and so you need to correct the offset. You have corrected it too far with the 9.5mm spacers as you have now made the offset 26mm ish, so the wheels are out further than they should be and so are hitting the outer arch. get some 3mm spacers and some 5mm spacers (if you can afford both) and try, you may find you are ok with the 3mm ones and so you will have more clearance on the outer arch.. but if the tyre is still hitting the inner arch you can use the 5mm spacer which will give you less clearance on the outer arch ut the inner arch should be fine.

hope this helps

 

[GhostWKD]

for 3mm spacers ask arc nicely if you can borrow his standard cinq ones for a min to test them and if they do the trick can pop to scrappers to find a cinq you can rob them off

 

[arseofbox]

I recently purchased some Oz Superturismo WRC's from ebay. These are also 14" and have the same tyres as my previous wheels.

Finally done it then? Excellent Stuff

 

[mase]

the abarth alloys will be 5.5 wide as bush said, and the 10mm spacers means u are running them with an offset of 26, the standard for a cento is 29, but with a 3mm extra needed at the front as standard making that 26, so the front will be exactly as fiat designed!

with the OZ alloys bein .5 inch wider, that means they will be 1/4 of an inch, so 5mm each side of the hud wider. this is what u have to take into account when buying spacers.

as said earlier, centos are built to run a 29mm offset with 5.5" wide wheels.

so that means u have to reduce that 29mm by 5mm to take into account the extra width, and that will get the inner tyre wall in exactly the same place as the standard tyre walls were designed to be, so basically u need to get the offset on the rear wheels to about 24mm in order to fit them perfectly.

do u know the offset of the OZ wheels? if they are meant for a punto then they will prob also be a 36mm.

if that is true, going by my theory u would need 12mm spacers to get the inside edge in the same place, not gonna happen cause u will scrape on the arch, so unfortunately if 9.5mm only just clear the inner body work, suspension arms is usually where they catch, then 9.5 are the narrowest u can go for, maybe u could get away with a 9mm, but rubbing on the inside of the body / suspension is not wanted.

if that causes the tyre to catch on the outside arch your choices are limited, u either need lower profile tyres, ever thought of 195/40 conti's? but if your car is really low, they might rub on the inside of the body work more than the 185's due to the 1cm wider tyres, but they would reduce the tyre wall by about 5mm.

u could always spend about £50 and get the rear arches cut / rolled to make sure they fit properly!!!

i kno this turned into a proper essay, PM me if u have any other questions or quiries!