After months of waiting to get to it, have finally fitted Speedline Corse to Exige. Fronts are all good and happy. But rears are totally anemic in the arches. Trying to compare to the standard wheels I’d guess they are about 10mm further into the arch.
I’ve tried to read back through old posts from “in the day” and commonly mentioned that the racers ran a 3mm spacer because that ensured clearance whilst keeping the lip on the central hub for locating the wheels.
But that would still look a bit crap. Racers didn’t have to worry about aesthetics but I do!
I’ve looked at Eliseparts and they have a 12mm spacer with a hub extension;
These would likely work, but I’m worried if I fit these will the hub studs be shortened too much and risk re holding wheels on with standard studs and bolts? I may be worrying too much but anyone have any experience of this?
Then there’s 25mm spacers which bolt onto the old studs and have new ones from the spacers;
These look ideal but concerned 25mm is pushing the wheels out too far. I’ve measured and top edge of the tyres clear the arch comfortably but with the camber will be quite wide at the lower edge of the rear wheel arch front and rear.
If any owners running Speedlines could offer some advice appreciate it. Love the wheels want to get combination of look and not effecting drive negatively. Sure this is a well trod path for some - I’m just late to the party!
Just a bit of extra feedback as starting to work through own questions and thought might be helpful to share info for another owner doing similar in the future.
And having lifted the Speedline wheel back off the car usefully it has a second set of holes in the rear face which don’t go right through but are 30mm deep and have the same spacing and 95.25 PCD as the actual holes that you pass the studs through to bolt the wheels onto the car
So you can run a sub 25mm bolt on spacer with the original studs standing proud of the face of the spacer and they align to the secondary 30mm holes/indents. And you can bolt the wheels up with the new spacers studs.
Just deciding what width of spacer to go with. As I have read and measured a 10mm spacer would return the Speedline wheel tyre to the same width as the regular Exige wheel. I think I may push it to 15mm or 20mm just to sit it out in the arch a little more. So in total that’s only a 5-10mm variance from the regular wheels so not a massive change wheel geo wise.
Given camber of rear wheels up to 25mm still tucks up under the rear arch lip comfortably. I just think a little too much so will go 15-20mm as a happy compromise. Positively I can use bolt on spacers with studs so no need to modify the existing studs and everything is readily reversible without any headaches.
Superb, glad you found an easy solution to get it sorted. Looking forward to seeing some photos of them on the car!
Did you find somewhere to supply bolt on spacers with additional studs? Eliseshop sell 20mm, although not sure if they still ship to the UK. Another option could be to ask Eliseparts if they can supply their 13/16mm spacers with countersunk stud holes instead of oval holes, or supply them undrilled and then ask a local company to drill them out so that you could press in studs.
Waiting on bolt on spacers unfortunately so will be a while.
H&R offer a bolt on 15mm option with studs fitted. Which is my preference width wise, as they are only 5mm wider than standard wheels given offset between wheels once fitted so only a marginal change.
The fitment/PCD etc is same as a MGF/MG TF which is more easy to search for than an S1 Exige.
Apologies for the slight thread hijack, but I thought this might be the perfect time and place to ask!
I’ve just offered up a set of Compomotives that I picked up just before xmas, and can see that they would also require a rear spacer of 13mm (8J ET5). They too have cut-outs for hubcentric spacers, but weirdly they seem that although they are the same PCD, they haven’t allowed enough for the width of a nut?
You can see here that the minimum distance between two nuts could be just over 72mm:
Sorry if silly question/reply, and I’m misunderstanding, but why are you trying to fit the nut into the void on the wheel? You need I think to fit a bolt on 15mm spacer with its own studs. You use the bolts that fit flash to the spacer to hold it to the existing studs and your wheel nuts to bolt to the spacer studs.
It does make sense, I just didn’t think it would be possible for the nuts to sit flush in a 15mm spacer, I’ll look into that thanks.
I would definitely need spacers, as the back face of the wheel clashes with the bolt heads on the 2 piece brake discs, and so doesn’t sit flush on the hub face.
If you hold fire until next week I’ve ordered a set of 15mm H&R spacers from Germany and should be here, so I can be the guinea pig if I have it right! I’ll share some pictures etc.
I found 15, 20 and 25mm full spacers with studs. I’m 99% sure I have it right after quite a bit of research but bear with me so only one of us wastes our money if I have it wrong!
I’ll weigh them when I take them off to fit the spacers. I did try picking up one of each rear in left and right hand and it is quite immediately noticeable. I don’t think earth shattering but clear difference.
I also have AO52 on my regular Exige wheels and AO48 on the Corse and expect the ‘52’s and quite a bit lighter than the 48’s so the difference is greater than my quick non scientific comparison with the same tyre.
I will need to update the tyres come spring just based on age of the ‘48’s.
Just for interest, I measured the hub spigot depth to see how well 3mm spacers would work on the front. The depth of the spigot is just under 8mm, but the taper of the OEM and Compomotive wheels means that that the first 3.5 - 4mm isn’t in contact with the spigot, and so there’s only about 4mm actually in contact. So if fitting a 3mm plain spacer, the ‘lip’ to sit the wheel on would only be around 1mm - very little!
I’d agree with that! I did see Eliseparts sell 3 and 5mm spacers with the extended hub.
You need to post here some detail and steps of your home wheel alignment. I’d be really interested to know how you went about that and the process. I’m a bit of a moron when it comes to that sort of thing but interested to learn and for it to be explained.
I’m conscious that fitting wheels with spacers as a thread probably isn’t that interesting to many but I’ve enjoyed being engaged on Exiges.com more after Andy’s push for more activity and posts, I know your good at tinkering
I don’t know about that, I think we’ve proven that bolting on wheels isn’t always straightforward. Or maybe we just make it look difficult…
Yeah can do, I’m just an idiot with power tools but I’ll give it a bash! I’m about to fit adjustable steering arms and so I’m attempting to make a laser bumpsteer gauge (used a plate and DTIs for the rear). I’ll try and remember to take some photos when I do the final alignment!
There are a number of things in this thread that, genuinely, worry me (from 20+ years of Exige ownership, although I don’t post often on here):
The rears wheels, even standard ones, have always had a slight inset to the wheelarch which is more pronounced than the fronts. The OP’s Speedlines look like they’re sitting in a similar place so, assuming they are the correct offset for the car, then that’s where they should be. If so, then fitting spacers will alter suspension geometry, wheel rate, etc.
The additional holes in the rear of some wheels (Compomotives were mentioned) isn’t so spacers can be fitted. It’s simply there to remove unnecessary metal and make them lighter, which is why some wheels have them and some don’t. Again, if the wheels need spacers fitted, then they’re not the right offset for the car. Replacement wheels should have been machined correctly to match the OE fitting, irrespective of any width changes.
Finally, if fitting spacers, it’s important to measure the distance from the back face of the wheel, ie, where it sits on the hub, to the seating face for the nuts. Compare this ‘clamping’ depth’ to the OE wheels. Replacement wheels should be very similar otherwise it risks either (a) nuts not screwing on far enough, or (b) nuts bottom-out before being tight against the wheel, which can happen with ‘blind’ nuts. If the clamping depth is smaller on the replacement wheels then the difference will give you the maximum safe spacer thickness; any thicker and you risk the nuts not going on far enough.
Re wheel inset. The Speedlines at least sit 10+mm more inset than the standard OEM wheel. Hard to see in pictures. If the inset was unchanged I wouldn’t be seeking to space the wheels for the sake of change. Fitting spacers is to return the car to as near standard inset/rear wheel base as I can.
Re fitting wheels with a different offset. People have been fitting Corse to Exige for 20 years. These are the correct version for the car. On the race cars they run them with the narrower wheelbase and greater inset. I don’t want to do that so returning as close to the OEM wheel as I can within a sensible tolerance.
Re “clamping depth” the 25mm stud length isn’t impacted on either the spacer to hub or wheel to spacer.
Re Geo in my case it’s 5mm wider on each side so 10mm wider than OEM across the wheel base. Race cars ran 20mm narrower with the same wheels. So I feel impact will be negligible.
For research, I made the effort to contact as many S1 Exige owners via instagram and Exiges who I saw were running the same wheels on their cars to ask them what they had done to get some insights from others experiences. 20mm-25mm spacers was the most common (or none at all). I decided to go as close to the standard rear wheel base as I could whilst fitting a bolt on spacer so not to loose the stud depth and to your message the clamping depth of the wheel nuts, which is a 15mm spacer.
I’ve ordered German TUV approved H&R wheel spacers on basis they are of the highest quality and standard of engineering so felt was taking best option I could.
If you see the Corse fitted directly to the hub in the metal/plastic you’d see how far inset they are and how off OeM they are. Hard to photograph.
Hope reply helps. Sent with respect of your own message and opinion as not wanting Exiges to turn into seloc!
If I fit and it doesn’t “feel” right, I’ll just remove and refit the OEM wheels and not worry about it.
Yep, sort of agree with the points here, it would be great to be able to buy a set of 5 spokes off the shelf from somewhere in the UK that bolt straight on and provide the same geometry, but that’s just not possible, even with offsets that are meant to be close to the original ET.
Better to try and find a decent, safe solution than just fitting them and changing the handling characteristics. I’m struggling to see how it has been achieved in the past. If hubcentric spacers can be used and put the wheels back to where they should be, the wheels are mounted correctly on the spigot and there is sufficient thread engagement on the nuts, I would class that as a decent solution.
I thought I’d ask the question on Seloc on off chance.
. But Exiges is definitely where it’s at for useful info for our cars 
