Are fender flares acceptable?
 

So I damaged one of my fenders last year because racecar. I straitened it out this year but the paint chipped away. I would like to cut the fender and run flares and eventually get 15x10's. I've seen spacers with built in studs and regular extended studs with a spacer. Which ones are better to use? Is all of this fender flare business just CR style?


Something like these, or stick with ARP studs?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ICHIBA-V1-12...c3582f&vxp=mtr

Flares are not ghey. They fill a purpose because racecar

Most of this. Not so much because racecar.

Any idea if the ichiba studs and spacers would be any good? I know people track with spacers or adapters, but I've never really liked the idea.

Only if you aren't flaring just to run fake wheels.

I just bought ARP studs. And use slip on spacers when needed. It's faster when changing wheels with different offsets because you don't have to take of a bolt on spacer.

Lol @ "fake" wheels. Who gives a ---- what wheels you run?


I would run with a slip on spacer at the track all day long. Bolt on, not so much. I had Ichibas on my Skyline and they seemed to work just fine.

Same, spend the ~$120 shipped and have infinite spacer/wheel possibilities.

Any sources for cheap spacers? Do they have to be hub and wheel centric?

I am flaring my car to cut out rust. It is not always about looking hellakewl

Dave, I have a set of 20mm slip on spacers, hubcentric. I'm considering selling them or machining them, as I only have room for about 10-15mm. PM if you want to buy.

are fender flares gay?

are you 12?

Gay. I've regretted it since day one. If they come out with good 245/255 tires, my mind will be changed. The overlays Savington and the other cat with the LS1 swap is another story. Those are sweet.

overlays > flares

I've read a lot of stories of people regretting it as soon as they made the first cut into their fenders.

Was sarcasm, I thought this thread was a joke. :rofl:

Gay as in good, no lol?

I've read about people that regret it, not sure why. I already regret modding my car, so why not keep going.

I guess the title is a bit inappropriate as I really wanted to know if those no name ebay studs and spacers are worth getting as in my first post.

Jay, i'll message you about the spacers when I figure out what size I want or need.

Because you can undo a turbo kit or a race seat or a hardtop. You can't undo fender flares.

I would just repaint the fender. The 15x10 requires serious commitment to body work and there are not many good tire choices in sizes that fit the car/tire.

To answer your original question some flairs are ghey while others are cool.

I get it but I don't. If you're (properly) installing flares to run wider tires and your goal is reached, when do you say to yourself "Man, I wish I wasn't able to fit so much rubber under my fenders, damn these stupid flares!"

Like, what changes?

lol @ Canadian threadz.

Canada is dope. Deal with it.

Lol this place used to be Canada wih Rick

Thanks for the input. I know the tire choices are few. Was actually planning to do this next year when the car comes off the road. Trying to stockpile parts now so I don't sit on my ass like last winter

Canada is America's stupid hat.

lol This thread is finished :facepalm:. Please close.

Just joking, broski! Don't get all interweb mad...

We love you denim tuxedo wearing northerners.

We are just envious of your available car selection we lack here in the states.. All those sweet RHD's we can't get :(

Two of the guys I share shop space with own RHD Civics. They're a huge pain in the ass. Totally not as cool as you'd think they would be.

Fixed. :)

Pretty sure I don't own any denim, plad shirts or hats with furr. :fawk:

I see RHD CRX's, Preludes, Civics, Integras etc. rolling around locally and wonder ... "why the hell would you import that ---- when you can get a Skyline, RX7, Supra etc."?

those would be much better choices

Flares can work on some cars.. Depends though. Heres mine.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1336273197

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1336273197

IDK i think flares are kinda gay! Factory pulled flares are baller IMO!
Fit 245/580R15's

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1336280199
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1336280199
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1336280199

Not gay... at least I'm not...

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1336352122

From an engineering solid mechanics standpoint, the longer studs with spacers are the better, safer choice.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1339460326

But your Miata is so flaming! :drool:

Most flares don't flow with the side crease and most don't extend far enough down the body panel. I've only seen one set that start at the crease. IMO this gives most of them a tacked on look.

Special Ed Racer? Or Special Ed Racecar? I'm confused.

If you are getting spacers to fill flares for wheels that already fit, yes straight up homosexual. Not the type of gay where its just a normal dude who plows dudes, like the annoying in your face west hollywood super fabulous gay.

Have you ever seen a flared miata running 15x8 wheels with spacers? It looks like a broken skateboard from behind.

If you are getting flares to stuff in big tires and wheels, rad.

anyone have a link for some of these flares that people used? Im thinking about starting on the body of my miata, to make it nice and some flares would be cool
Thanks,
Bret

If you have flares and anything less than a 245mm tire, you are failing really, really hard.

Flares on the Miata were the worst thing I have ever done to any car I've ever owned.

Waiting on autokonexion's new front fenders.

Savington- 225 R888's and 15x10's gay? If so, I'll continue my gay traditions, as that's the route I'm heading. Emilio finally talked me out of the 235's through Mike.

Well . . . this car is clearly a flamer. . . not so sure about flares anymore rofl.

No one ever responded to this but I would like to hear what people think about that. I have a set of flairs and am on the fence about putting them on. You can't get any decent street tire wider than 225 so I'd have to go to 0 offset to fill them up. I'm kind of wondering what the point doing that is now...

Like Sav said long ago, anything under a 275 and flares are rice.

You are under 25, right? Modifications to an automobile should be to fix a flaw that existed before the modification, given your intended purpose. If you enjoy shopping for crap to glue to your car to change the look so it is "unique" for the sake of unique, or whatever, that's fine, most people don't actually care what you do.

I'm well past 25 and whether people care or not what I do to the car I appreciate their opinion on the matter. I'm quite sure everyone on this forum has more Miata experience than I do and I ask the question in sincerity to hopefully not make a mistake that could have been easily avoided and that I can't undo.

The reason I picked up the flairs was to run 15x10 race rubber thinking I would just run 0 off set for street tires to fill them up for DD. The reason I am second guessing that idea is some of the events I run is not worth the trouble of swapping tires and it is an equally viable option to just run decent performance tires on 15x9 6ULs all the time.

well why didn't you ask that then?

Flares are great. I think it enhances the Miata's look exponentially when done right. Miata's just don't look aggressive enough until they are a bit lower to the ground and tires are a bit wider.

i don't like the way the flares look. I like a miata lower with a bit wider tire. i think the flares take away from the looks and lines of the miata.

Assume you were running man meat tires. What flares would you run in the back? I'm thinking something like the autokonexion N2 rears since they go way down the front and seem to block more of the front of the tire than anything else I've seen.

AK N2 rear flares with the frotn Aero fenders would probably look good. One issue I noticed with flared some Miata's is that the front flares look higher than the rear flares.

Ignoring everything else. If you have the same wheels and tyres and then space them out 2 inches, what effect would this have on handling? I imagine the effect would be different front to rear...

It'll change the length to width ratio making the car more square and easy to over rotate. It'll also increase scrub and steering effort. If you only spaced out the front and left the rear narrow it would REALLY make the car want to rotate. If you only spaced out the rear it would make the rears fight rotation more. Also wheel bearing wear increases.

Miatas are designed for +36 off set wheels and anything below about +25 pushes the scrub radius beyond the limit the suspension can absorb so it affects handling. That being said lots of guys run 0 or even - off set just fine. It's just not the way the car was designed so it will not give you optimum performance.

Thanks for the reply leafy. That's similar to what I had heard but its good to have someone confirm it for our cars too. I'll take this into account when I mess around with my spare miata.

I'm going to ignore this comment because you seem to think that Mazda designed this car to be fast on a track with 200+hp on wide semi slicks. When, to me, they seem to have designed it to be fun on the street with 100hp on skinny tyres.

I don't see why you would read that into my comment, I simply stated the facts and it has nothing to do with what I think about the cars.

Miatas were designed with a 130 hp motor and 14x6 +36 offset wheels. I answered the question about adding 2" spacers to it which would push the offset to about -30. It has nothing to do with street or track or HP of the car the fact is a 2" spacer would significantly impact the handling of the car.

Super gay on the street, especially with stock wheels.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1373130202

But you can learn to live with them when you start getting FTD at every event you go to.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1373130202

Like Sav said, if you're not running 275 or bigger don't waste your time.

I read that you kept mentioning the cars initial design and that it would not give "optimum performance". If these cars were designed for optimum performance we wouldnt modify them.
I'm sure it would "impact" the handling, but I havent spaced out the same wheels 2 inches and done before and after testing. So I'm not entirely sure what that impact would be. And I cant help but think that spacing out the stock wheels on a stock miata will be slightly different than doing the same thing to a car with different ride height, camber, spring rates, castor, sticky tyres and double the stock power. And I could be wrong here, but once you take camber into account it might be slightly different for a 5" wide wheel compared to a 10" which makes offset numbers without widths a bit dubious to me. Thats why the broad statement you made about performance seemed like more of a guess than an experience or explanation. But if you do have experience or data or something can you please explain HOW performance would be affected not just that it would be?

Follow up question, I've read that pushing the wheels out would make the ride

OK I'll tell you what the impact will be. A 2" spacer WILL make the car ride like crap, steer much harder and plow like crazy in the corners. Why? Because it makes the radius the control arms travel significantly larger than they should be both up and down and front to back. The result of the bigger up and down arc is way more corner camber than you want. See how much the red car in photo above has with a good set up? Well a +2" spacer would have much less tire on the road on the inside wheel.
The result of larger front /rear control arm arc is the outside tire is much farther forward of the inside tire than it should be. So looking at the radius from the top of the steering a stock turn would have the wheels mostly accross from each other like this:

/-=-/

and a 2" spacer turn would push the tires forward on the outside and rearward on the inside something like this:

/
-=-
...../

That is much exaggerated but will give you the idea of pushing the outside tire forward in a turn is a very big deal to performance in handling. A 2" spacer would blow that radius off the chart and make the car very unstable.

But probably the worst thing is you are pushing your scrub radius way wider than it should be and you would basically be loosing most of the grip form the outside 2" of your tires. See here to understand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_radius


Look you absolutely can put 2" spacers in the car and have a perfectly functional car. It will go, it will stop and it will turn. All I am saying is it will not do any of that it as well as it should because the suspension gemoetry is so far out of whack from how it was designed to function. With the exact same power and suspension a +36mm offset will smoke you in the corners all day long. If you doubt me I'd be glad to demonstrate if you are anywhere near the road course in Omaha but I can assure you all you will see is my tail lights getting farther away after each turn.

And by the way wheel width has no impact whatsoever on offset. An 8" wheel with a +36 offset simply adds 1" to each side of stock +36 6" wheel thus the offset retains exactly the same at +36. One has nothing to do with the other.

I hope I do not sound crabby or full of myself here. I don't mean to be either, I just want you to understand a 2" spacer will kill your handeling.

In my research If you aren't 10 wide, then dont do it, lol