As stated in the title.....how many of you are using them? I want them, but I'm scared of all the horror stories of broken axles and bent a-arms/tie rods......... I need some input, Good/Bad. Let me hear it. If spacers are a bad way to go, then I'm just gonna have to settle for the lower center of gravity that I'll get with the 18" rear tires.

 

Well I'm not using them and I'll tell ya why.

With wheel spacers in the back:

You have increased stress on the stock axle, which will be prone to bending just due to the increased leverage the tire will have on it. Plus, the stock axle is relatively thin on the ends and this is where I would expect it to bend if it takes a good enough beating.

With wheel spacers on the front:

You will have increased bump steer. Ideally, if you draw a straight line through the upper and lower ball joints, the line will draw a line through the center of the tire contact patch.... that is the "footprint" that the tire has while it is resting on the ground. The farther you move it out... the more prone you are to bump steer. For instance, if you hit a bump with the right front tire and don't have an equal bump on the left side, the bike will want to veer toward the right.

That's not including the additional stress you put on the tie rods due to the same factor as well as the upper A-arms in particular. The fortunate thing about A-arms and tie rods is the fact that the load transferred to them is basically parallel with the loads placed on them.

My suggestion would be to save your money and go with a set of A-arms and a wider axle if you are going to really be working your bike...ie: jumping, motocross, racing in general.

Hope this helps!

 

I just put wheelspacers on the back of my raptor this weekend. I like to ride mx and I debated for several months on whether or not to do this because of the damage it can cause to the axle, but riding mx on a stock rappy can get a little freaky in the turns. I will not put spacers on the front because it's cheaper to replace an axle than a-arms. I figure I'll ride it with the spacers until I bend the axle (which I expect to happen) and then I'll just get a new +4 axle.
Even with the spacers on the back only, it still makes a big difference in the corners. Now it just wants to slide around the corners instead of tipping over.
Ideally, I would rather go with a whole new suspension set up, but there is a spending problem. My husband spends all our money on stuff for his quad! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

Yes It does blackwidow. Thanks very much! I guess my next question then is am I going to be able to notice any gains from droping the rear tire size from 20" to 18"? It was between the two as to what I was going to do.

 

Well you have to figure that dropping your tire size will drop the back end of your bike only 1 inch... depending on how much difference the tire manufacturers are between each other.

Only one inch will probably not be noticeable for what you're trying to acheive, however it will drop your gear ratio and allow you to accelerate faster but not have quite as much top end speed. Speed wise, you can do it cheaper by changing sprockets.

 

I'm actually not shooting for the acceleration difference, I'm looking more for any stability advantages I can gain. I droped down from 21" fronts to 20", and was looking to drop from the 20" rears I have now to the 18" to drop the center of gravity some. There have been guys on here that have flipped their linkage in the rear to drop a couple inches and said that it had helped quite a bit in the stability, but I also know that there has been alot of debate upon that mod hurting your suspension geometry as well as the bottoming the frame out on the ground since the suspension travel will then be a greater distance than the frame to the ground distance. So in a long story short I do not wish to flip my linkage, and was hoping to acquire similar results by droping the tire size.

 

I still have my spacers
and I have no complaints, even though I do have a bent rear axle....LoL
They say that it is not suggested for jumping, but dumb me, I let one of my buddies hit a huge jump on it.........
oh well...its' my fault.......

on dirt like on a MX track or something you don't even notice the shake in the rear end.........the onlytime that I notice it is on pavement.......

Until my tie rods break (if they ever do) I have ABSOLUTELY NO complaints.........all I have is praise.......
they are the perfect thing for tight wads, like myself, to make the bikes handle better!

and it is a HUGE difference
and when I slammed it......that was an even bigger difference........

 

Ive got rear 2.5in spacers, no complaints here. I had a bad wreck a couple of months back and the axle got bent but the spacers survived unharmed. I've also got offset front wheels for duning and Im running a front drop kit from 14mins. I first got the offset rims and didnt get any bumpsteer, but now that I put on the drop kit, bumpsteer is horrible with the offset wheels, with my stock wheels its fine. I dont do any jumping at all so bending axles or breaking A-arms is not a concern for me. I would go ahead and get the rear spacers if you wont be getting a lot of air.

 

still got mine. actually had the 2.5" rears machined to 2" & the 1.5" fronts machined to 1". i should have left the fronts 1.5", oh well. i have not had any bending trouble except when i screwed up a hill climb or two but mo power takes care of that issue. eventaully i will splurge for the wider axle & +2" a-arms but no rush since wheel spacers still work fine, i do more climbing that hill flying.....[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

Bump....