Fitting spacers, umm, not a favourite subject of mine. It has been discussed, but no one has really got a good explanation. In my view, you have increased the track of the car, this does various things. A question I would ask is, what happens when you shorten the wheel base and fit softer springs, along with altering the active caster/camber angles, which is what you are doing when you fit wheel spacers. A shorter wheelbase makes for a less stable car, it will also have a larger turning circle and be less manoverable. An example of this, Ford used the American shell for the Focus RS as it has a longer wheel base, to get it to handle better than the ST, they have now gone to the Fiesta, with a narrower track and a long wheel base, sorry to mention the blue oval, but it is a good example. So you fit spacers and the effect is the same as shortening the car. The next bit with the springs, it is a bit like a seesaw, the further you sit from the pivot point the easier it is to push down, so you alter the spring rates. As for the camber and castor, because of the hub setup used, again moving the wheel away from the pivot point, you change the arc in which the wheel moves, altering the Ackerman and the camber change, hence the car understeers and then this goes into oversteer. Sometimes people perceive that fitting spacers makes the car feel different and react different. The reason a Renault use the large offset wheels, is to optimise all the geometry that has been tried and tested to give a well balanced car that turns in well, is stable at speed and gives a reasonable amount of comfort.
Now if you start to alter the suspension, the camber, fit different wheels, and spend vast amounts of money tuning everything to get it to work better than factory, that is great, but fitting Carlos fandango spacers, that actually make the car look silly from the back well that is fine as well.
Just remember, that all the money you are spending on engine parts to go faster, is now being lost in the corners, where the Renaultsport, used to leave the competition.
Once a few people start to realise the effect it actually does cause by fitting spacers, there will be a shed load for sale.
If Renaultsport had wanted to have the wheels further out they would of, but to get the chassis to be as good as it is, they had to use the offset on the wheels to do it, they used the offset to move the centre point as near to the pivot point on the steering knuckle to eliminate all the camber/caster changes, when using that type of upright/hub setup.
Anyway, enough of my dislike for spacers and I apologise for my rant, I'm off to cut my exhaust of, as the car will at least sound faster
