Will steering components or other things eventually break if you hit jumps with wheelspacers that widen the front by 1.5" on each side?

Have any of you tried the Perfex Front Suspension kit that widens the quad by 2 inches on each side on the front? it is a set of (aluminum?) spacers that go in between the frame and the a-arms...... i dont know if it is safe to hit jumps with it though (my jumps- i get about 20-30 feet distance, with 6 feet height- 35degree take offs with 15degree landings) it is a HARSH landing with the stock setup and bottoms out frequently if i dont land it the exact right way.

 

i have always used wheel spacers on the front of the quad and they have worked fine. They have never affected anything else. Friends of mine have spacers on both the front and back of the quad and they raced, one guy was really fat, and they never had troubles. I dont know about them kits that you were talking about, you likely seen them at Royal, cause when you widen the front end like that your tie rods are not long enough. I think they give you cheap longer tie rod ends to put on. I would be concerned about these bending.

 

I don't like the idea of that type of widening kit at all, that move your a-arm mounts out. It just looks real unsafe to me, and screws up your suspension geometry as well.

Before I had my extended a-arms I had my warrior widened by flipping the wheels and relocating the valve stem. It works on the same concept as wheel spacers or getting wheels with a different offset. This will put some additional stress on your ball joints, wheel bearings, shocks, tie rods and tie rod ends. It's not that bad though, I rode my warrior on Rausch Creek's mx tracks with that setup and never broke anything. But your shocks will definitely get softer because of the extra leverage, so if you're barely making a jump now, flipping the wheels will make you bottom out every time.

 

ya but im taking off the lip of the jump anyways- its scary to hit it especially after i smashed my teeth overjumping a bit smaller jump[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

what do i do with the disc brakes if i flip the wheels? should i get a mechanic do it so its safe? or should i just tighten by one turn- always doing opposite sides first?

 

You have 2 options for flipping the wheels. For both you will probably need to take it to a shop that mounts tires, because mounting valve stems involves breaking the bead.

1. Flush mount valve stems. The good-less work, the bad-have to take your wheels off to put air in your tires
2. (my preferred method) Put the original valve stem in backwards, drill a new hole on the other side of the wheel and install a new one. You definitely don't want to do this if you don't know what you're doing, you could ruin a perfectly good wheel if you drill the hole wrong.

 

what do you mean by flushing the valve stems (do you mean "flush mount"-valve stems, or flush "mounts [for] valve stems?) Can i just leave them backwards? they dont stick out too much and i dont think the disc break would hit it......... but it would be hard to fill the tires....... is this what you meant by option #1? just reverse the tires and dont do any work?

I'ld rather do the failsafe way

and by the way- how much wider do you get from reversing the wheels?

 

I also at one time had my rims flipped. I did not do anything to the valve stems. I could still reach them fine. The only thing is that my rotors were sticking wide open. This may be because i also had spacers on. Check once u flip the rims that ur rotor is still in the rim. Because if u hit a rock ur screwed. U can easly remove your rims yourself if you have tools. Its likely a 17mm socket and wractchet, just remove four bolts. To put em back on tighten one then do the one accross fom it. Then the other and the one across from it. It should be torqued to like 50ft lbs. If u dont have a wrench just get them tight but dont snap them off like i did with the impact.

 

I said flush mount valve stems, meaning but some flush mount valve stems (they don't stick out like a normal one, some require a special adapter on your air compressor to refill)

On most machines you will have to do something with the valve stems. To this point the only machines I ever saw that didn't have an issue with them hitting the caliper, was on drum braked machines that don't have the caliper to begin with (like pre-2003 blasters, and a lot of utility quads).

How much width you gain depends on the offset of your stock wheels. I got 2-3 inches per side when I flipped the wheels on my warrior, the wheels are flipped on my brother's 250ex and it gained about the same.

Here's a pic of my brother's 250ex with flipped wheels

You can compare it to pictures of a stock one and see for yourself. The ds250 is a similar design so your results will be comparable.

also, width of stock warrior

my warrior with flipped wheels

 

I assume the same can be done for the rears? Only reason I ask is, I bought a spare set of wheels/tires that are gray tone outside and aluminum (that matches my stocks) on the inside. You don't have the clearance issues in the rear that you have in the front, correct?