Wheel to caliper gap

J

JoelB

Joined
Jun 27, 2016
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Location
Minnesota
I got a set of wheels for free off my brothers 22 Miata RF. They have a set of Vredestien Wintrac Pro tires on them with only 1 season. The wheels happen to be 4x100 with the correct hub diameter and same tire size as my Accent. Pretty sweet timing since i needed to buy a set of winter tires/wheels for my car this year anyways.

I test fit them this weekend and the only issue is the proximity to he caliper bracket. I only have a cheapy set of calipers with no plunge feature so my best eyeball is 2mm on the gap. I'm looking for guys with wheel fitment experience to let me know if this should worry me? This car is just a daily driver. No spirited driving. I'm inclined to run them and just "see what happens"
Miata wheels .jpg
Brake space.jpg
 
A quick search is showing 2-3mm, ~0.080”~0.118”, of clearance recommended. The 17” wheels on my truck are super close to the calipers as well, maybe a bit more space but not much.
 
spasm3 said:
My worry would be, if you hit something and bend a wheel, its going to tear up jack when it hits the caliper.
Click to expand...
My hope would be the wheel gets damaged in that scenario as it's aluminum and the caliper bracket is cast steel (I think).
 
The LS430 is severely limited with aftermarket rims, given its fixed calipers. I ended up with 17x8's for my snow tires, 45mm offset, and there is very little space between the caliper and spokes, as well as on the OE 18's. But neither are that close.
 
JoelB said:
My hope would be the wheel gets damaged in that scenario as it's aluminum and the caliper bracket is cast steel (I think).
Click to expand...
Are the rims the correct offset? It would seem that with floating calipers it shouldn't be an issue on getting proper rims imho....
 
You could add spacers. I know some are iffy but in your case, you'd only need something a few mm in thickness, not like typical 20-25mm spacers. Don't even know what thicknesses are readily available though.
 
Is your Accent new, or, rather, are its front brake pads new? The caliper will move away from the wheel as the pads wear, but new pads will send it back close again.
 
JoelB said:
Flying Miata has 3mm "lug centric" spacers. That could work here. Not sure I have the thread engagement for it or not.
Click to expand...
3mm would only be 1-1/2 to 2 threads on the lug nuts. Does that supplier say anything about needing longer studs ?
 
Hall said:
3mm would only be 1-1/2 to 2 threads on the lug nuts. Does that supplier say anything about needing longer studs ?
Click to expand...
They have a 3mm, 5mm and 10mm. It says longer studs needed for the 5mm with track use. 10mm needs longer studs for sure. But they are a Miata specialist so could be irrelevant to me.
 
Wheel stud lengths are fairly common so I think 3mm won't impact thread engagement. They even imply that for normal driving, even the 5mm spacer doesn't need longer studs.
 
RooflessVW said:
The caliper brackets are fixed.
Click to expand...
The calipers look to be floating as far as I can tell from the pic

my point was having fixed calipers can cause an issue with aftermarket rims and availability thereof, less so with floating

1692630514249.png
 
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