I just bought a set of wheels with an offset of et52.3 (16x8) for the rear and et65 (16x7) for the front. I already know I am going to have to get adapters for these since the bolt pattern is different, but my question is, what size spacer/adapter am I going to need to get in order to make these work? I really don't know anything about wheel spacing so any information would be greatly appreciated.

Also, will I have any issues with the the suspension components or R56 brakes that I will running with these wheels? i.e. will they need more spacing?

 

What bolt pattern are they? 5x130 I'd assume? That will determine the minimum width possible with the adapter. Some of the bolt patterns overlap the 4x100 which requires a two-piece adapter which is much thicker than a normal adapter.

What kind of fitment are you going for? Do you want them to sit flush? Do you want to stretch tires and poke them? Do you wanna keep the negative camber?

You'll probably have to run a lot of stretch and poke on the 16x8's. Most adapters are 25mm wide at the very least which puts you down at 27mm which is a good bit of poke. Not a super crazy amount....but enough that it will be noticable.

Hard to tell on the brake clearance with the 16's. What kind of wheels are they? I've got an R55 cooper so they're still the smaller brakes than the R56 and my wheels just BARELY clear the calipers....about 1mm of clearance. They certainly wouldn't fit an R56 MCS without some very low offsets.

One last thing to think about is the hardware of the adapter. You're gonna need to make sure that they con provide you with the hardware necessary for the R56 with its weird thread size. I was gonna run adapters and never found a company that could offer the right hardware for the R56. It's not impossible, but you'll have to find a company that can source it. Some adapters can use the stock lugs...but they're often thicker than usual.

 

Build it. A Local machine shop could do it for not a whole lot of money i would guess.

 

They are 5x130, would that require a 2 piece adapter? The wheels in question are Porsche seven slots.



I want to try and have the rims pretty flush with the fender, but a little poke would definitely be ok. And a little stretch is cool too. I'd rather not have a ton of stretch though. As far as the camber is concerned, I want to keep it close to stock if possible. Does this all sound possible? And I will be getting V-Maxx coilovers soon to slam the car pretty low. I'm sure that will effect what I can do right?

I think I might not use the brakes either. They aren't on the car yet and it sounds like it might be easier to just keep the stock ones on.

Here is a company that I found on vwvortex that makes adapters custom to fitment.
http://www.motorsport-tech.com/

 

5x130 is one of the one-piece adapters for 4x100 applications so you can go down to 18mm IF you can find someone that will fab them up for you. There are a few places that have been able to get them thinner like 18mm by using special hardware for the bolts that hold the adapter onto the hub. What year is your car? The only problem will be if it's running the odd thread pitch of the later models.

To avoid poke with those rears you're gonna need to find some thinner spacers. Like I said, the normal 25mm spacers are going to poke and running no stretch would not be an option at that offset.

With 18mm the rears will be at et34 which will poke a bit. I run 16x8 et33 (basically the same).....and if it weren't for the massive amount of camber I've got, they would certainly poke atleast half an inch.

For ride height. I'm of the opinion that if you're gonna run poke, you have no choice but to run the car really really low. Wheel gap and a tall ride height look 10 times worse if you're running poke because it looks really odd and out of place if the wheels aren't near the arches. Obviously with 16's that will require a lot of lowering which can lead to rubbing issues if the tires are too fat for the application.

And yah, motorsport-tech is a good company to go to for this. I've talked with them before about getting some adapters.

what tire size were you looking at? Go a bit smaller on the outer diameter?

 

Here's how my rears sit. 16x8 et33(i think, might be a bit higher because i had the backs machined down to tuck more). with 205/40's stretched on. Take into consideration that I have left the negative camber untouched from a drop that is around 4" so it's a great deal of camber to help tuck them a bit more. With less camber, they would obviously poke more.



16x7 et33 is more flush. The front has less camber than the rear as well. I went with the tires that are amazing for stretch so that they'd even stretch on 7's and as you can see, the stretch helps clear the arch even up front.



The rear camber and overall stance

 

All Hail Rally, the King of Slam and Stretch and Poke.

 

I have an early 2002 build date.

I'm not sure about the tire size yet. Maybe I can find to more 16x7 though to make it easier to fit them. We'll see though. Maybe I'll go with a lot of poke for the nice euro look.

 

I have an opportunity to get a set of 16x7 928 phone dial wheels in the desired offset of 65 et. I have an MCS R56. Does anyone know if the H&R Vw adapters 4x100 to 5x130 would work with the R56 lug bolts? Is this set up even an option?