(upbeat electronic music) - Spacers are one of those
things that you don't really know you need them until
you have to go buy them. Now, with spacers we're not
really here to talk about whether they're safe or not, we kind of already kind of
dived in to that subject a couple videos ago,
so we decided instead, we're gonna talk about how to actually measure your spacers because we get about a million emails
a day, talking about it. The first thing that you
wanna kinda get in to is that with spacers, there's
usually a few reasons as to why you use them. You use it for a wider
track path, you know to have extra clearance or just to
get that wheel fitment game lookin ten out of ten. And it's usually the
second and the third one, it's not usually the first one,
because not a lot of people are gonna use spacers to
widen your track stance. It's more of an aesthetic thing more than it is a function thing. By the way, I'm Alex
from Fitment Industries, don't forget to subscribe,
and we're gonna dive in to how to measure spacers for your car. Getting right down to the basics, the first and most important thing before you go to measure your spacers is that you let your suspension settle. Now usually, the word of
mouth is anywhere from five to then days is how
long you wanna let your suspension settle before you go and measure spacers for your car. Now, with spacers since
you are measuring out millimeter by millimeter,
even the tiniest difference can ultimately ruin the
way that your car drives, especially if you go too big of a spacer, or if you go too little
of a spacer and you end up still hitting something like
your strut or your brakes, or anything like that. Spacers are safe, as long as
you install them correctly, and at the same time that
you just buy a quality part. Now, we're not gonna go into
a huge sales pitch about it because we just don't want
to and it's Monday morning, but I want you guys to
know that if you're looking to get spacers to always get some, like, high quality nice stuff. It's anything that has
like the T6061 aluminum, 10.1 steel studs are
gonna do the greatest job. We usually recommend Adapt Tech, cause that's who we go through, but you are more than
welcome to pick anybody else, cause I know we got a lot
of people from overseas that watch these videos as well. So, once you figure out
who you're gonna buy from, making sure that your
suspension's all set to go, it's actually a fairly easy
way to measure your spacer. So a couple things that
you're gonna wanna have before you get started in
to measuring your spacers and things like that are
obviously the components needed to take off your wheel. But we're gonna talk about how to actually measure your spacers here. So we're gonna go through
this here really quick. So to get started with measuring, it's actually pretty darn simple. All you need is a
straight edge and a ruler. Now what you wanna do is you wanna measure from the point of least
clearance to your wheel. Basic most simplest way
of saying it is just find the contact point,
the point that the tire or wheel is going to likely make contact with your fender at a straight edge. Now usually I just use this, and then I will just measure it out. And one thing that you
have to remember is, obviously, you wanna
make sure that you're not dealing with any sort of turning
issues or clearance issues or anything like that. So right now I'm looking at probably around a 15 millimeter spacer here. A couple things that you're gonna wanna take into consideration
obviously is the fact that you will also have to
consider stretch tires. You'll also have to consider
coilovers and things like that. And then you'll also
have to consider actual just daily driven ride height. If you have a lot of people
in your vehicle a lot of times and you are measuring for
spacers with nobody in it, you're gonna wanna make sure
that you're going conservative on your measurement. So, we are going to put the spacer on, and we're gonna talk a
little bit more about that. (upbeat electronic music) (groaning) So now that we have the wheel off and you've measured your spacers,
you ordered your spacers, hopefully you picked up some Adapt Tech, because that's just the way to go. We're gonna break down a
little bit of what this is. So this is T6061 aluminum, this doesn't have the steel studs. Some spacers are going to
come with the bolts added in, like so, and this is gonna be
when we determine that your current studs, your lug nuts
for your bolts, whatever, what have you, is it gonna be enough to fully engage the wheel
after the spacer is installed. This is usually a case by case
basis, but for the most part if it's above 25 millimeters and up, it's going to almost always have these. And it's not necessarily a terrible thing, it just requires a couple of extra steps. So we're gonna into the basics first. Now, with these spacers, you can get them hub centric to the vehicle,
and what that hub centric means is that you have a little
ring here that is specifically measured out for certain wheels. And then when you buys
aftermarket wheels a lot of them come with a larger hub bore, just because they want
you to buy their wheels, and they wanna make sure
that the wheel fits, cause if the hub bore is too small, the aftermarket wheel won't fit. When you buy spacers, if
you buy generic spacers, a lot of 'em won't have this ring, it'll just be a flat piece of metal. Now this, you're gonna notice
has a hub centric ring on it, and it's also going to
have a hub centric area for your vehicle. So, what we can do is when we make these, they come hub centric to your vehicle, but they can also come hub centric to the wheel that you're
purchasing as well. So if you have a 72.1 for a
millimeter for your hub centric wheel, or for your vehicle, and you have a 67.1 for
let's say your wheel, you can actually buy a spacer,
and we can custom make it so it's exactly hub centric
to your perfect application. When you go to install
spacers, one thing we usually recommend is having some sort of grease or anti-seize on this,
and this is just gonna help you with the removal and
installation at times. Another recommendation that we
have for you before you go to install your spacers is to
kinda brush down this rust. You don't want anything to
cause it to seize on to the caliper, or the rotor, I'm sorry, but what you can do is just
take a wire brush to it. Clean off the excess. Make sure you clean off
your studs a little bit too. Put a little bit of anti-seize
here on the back of this. Put a little anti-seize here for you, and you should be ready to roll. And it's pretty much as
simple as just going in to install it you're gonna
notice that the hub centric ring fits perfectly on there. So when you put on a spacer
like this, it's great, it's hunky dory, it fits, and this is just a sample here for us. But, you may notice that
we don't have a lot of threads showing for the actual
spacer and for the wheel, and once you get everything mounted up it's not gonna be too safe. Now, what happens is a lot
of the myths come from, well, people install these, they
get two turns of engagement, and they wonder why their wheel falls off going down the highway. It's because, when you go
and put on your lug nut, that's only two and half threads
of engagement practically. You need to make sure that
if this is occurring to you, that you get the spacers
with the extended lug bolts, because that's gonna give
you the engagement needed to make sure that you
actually have a safe ride. So this is where a lot of the
myths of bad spacers come from Also the fact that they're not hub centric or something like that is
gonna play with a lot of issues but, that is why we kinda
go back to the spacers that also have the lug
nuts that are added on. The biggest thing that we
recommend is that you need at least 6.5 to 8 revolutions
of a full engagement on a lug nut to sit correctly. If you're noticing that
you have less than that, you're gonna wanna make sure
that you get extended lug nuts or extended thread lug nuts, that you get a spacer that has these actually included on them. If you feel like it's gonna be close, we usually just recommend that you can request these added on, just
to make sure that they fit and they clear correctly. But 6.5-8 is the way to do it. It's still gonna come hub
centric to whatever you want. It's ready to roll. You're ready to go. And last but not least, you're
going to also wanna make sure that you're buying the
right lug nuts or bolts. Now you have conical, that are
gonna sit, looks like a cone. You also have flathead. There's a couple others out there. Most are conical, but
don't take our word for it, just remember that, you're
probably gonna wanna make sure that you're looking at the
right lug bolts or nuts because if you go and you put on a spacer, you're really excited, you're
ready to go to that car show and have perfect fitment, and
win fitment at best of show and you're gonna realize
that you will not be able to make it to the car show because your lug nut only turns 2.5 times. That's usually where a lot of
the myths of spacers come from because people go and
they engage it one thread and then they wonder why
their wheel comes off. We're going to put the spacer on now, and then we're gonna test fit it, make sure it all looks hunky
dory, then go from there. Alright, so now that
we have the spacers on, you're gonna notice that
we have a new fitment. I think it looks pretty good. The backs we already had done. The fronts here ended
up having a pretty good, not too bad of a spacer,
we had to do with the bolts so that we get the correct
seatage for the lug nuts, but everything looks good. You're probably, this
one's still gonna have a little bit of rub at
full turn I would say, but again, it all comes
down to what you want. It just, you need to make sure
that you're doing it safely and correctly because if
you have improper spacers, or you have cheap spacers or
you have an issue with seating, you're just overall gonna have
an issue across the board. So just be sure that
you're doing it safely. Make sure that you're doing it correctly. And of course, always
buy quality products. But if you guys have any questions, be sure to drop a comment below. If you're looking for spacers, check out fitmentindustries.com/store and of course don't forget to subscribe. Let us know what you guys would
like us to talk about next. But I'm Alex from Fitment Industries and we will see you later. Peace.
