My Fat BUTT. (Thanks to Paul Hill)

The wider rear track looks good. Did you do the fronts too?

 

You might consider putting some 3M Stonegard material over your lower rear fenders -- I did that when I widened my 308's rear track with spacers... helps eliminate the otherwise inevitable rock chips. You can buy uncut film by the foot from www.xpel.com/products/bulk.asp

 

Looks wicked good!

 

The tires stick out past the fender well. Is there any chance that they will hit on bumpy roads?

 

That looks really good. I am thinking of doing the same on my 89 348. What is the cost??? I am also interested if the new offset will rub the wells.
BT

 

I installed mine from Daniel last week and wish I would have bought them sooner, woth every penny

 

It will be interesting to see under track conditions if the wheel well will blow out. By any chance did you roll the inside edge of the fenders to minimize the damage to the tires? I don't perfer putting extra load on the outer wheel bearing so I tend to shy away from this type of setup. Also in NY the tires are required to be covered by a fender. Dumb law . I perfer to go with sizing up the tire to get more of the width and patch on the road. Just my 2 cts

 

Did you get an alignment after you added the spacers?

 

When I read your question my first response was that spacers wouldn't change alignment settings. On further consideration however I think the wider track would increase the moment at the inboard control arm pivot. This would have to be counteracted a greater load from the spring...which means a lower ride height, and therefore altered alignment settings.

Daniel, have you noticed a small reduction in ride height?

 

I'm running the same on my 348.

25mm rear; 15mm front spacers on stock rims.

Transforms the look of the car and it does feel more stable.

John

 

The spacers effectively lengthen the A arms, making the wheels further from the suspension fulcrum. This means that there is more of a moment on the suspension with an unchanged amount of spring to hold it up. Your car will sit slightly lower. This will change camber to be more negative. It also means that your suspension will compress more in an aggressive turn than it would without the spacers.

There is no doubt that the spacers will affect handling, but only a test drive by an experienced driver will confirm if it actually IMPROVES handling. You are modifying the design of the suspension geometry without any analysis in advance. I'm not saying it can't improve the handling, just that it may or it may not. It certainly improves the look though.

Unfortunately, the 348 wheels are among the heaviest ever put on a late model Ferrari. Now you are adding several more pounds of unspring weight to that. Ugh. That can't be good for the damping rate. I think you would be better off to simply go to lighter, wider aftermarket wheels.

Birdman

 

Did the Spyder not have +25mm offset rear wheels as standard? If so I'm pretty sure the bearings will be able to take it OK.
I'm currently trying out a 20mm set from Paul.
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I put 355 wheels on my 348 and just installed 15mm spacers on the rear only.

 

My understanding is the '93~'94 models rear track was increased by 25mm+. Don't know if this was accomplished by different wheel offsets or the actual rear mounts were changed. Seems the latter would be more costly.

 

I think you may have good point.

I took my car in for it's annual service today and asked if they would widen the rear track.

They recommended that I did not do it as it would put extra strain on the suspension which its was not designed for. I have heeded their advice as they are a well established and recognised independant here in the UK although I do want to widen the track but may look at after market wheels as the wider track looks so much better. As for the handling, who knows, it's not my attention to take it that far if I can help it!

 

Dan, on my 91 348ts, i went with 30mm on the back and 20mm on the front, they fit great, no rubbing, and made a major difference in the looks of the car, for some reason moving the wheels out that little bit completely changes the stance of the car,

now ive picked up a set of 355 wheels, so here we go again, i think what im going to do is leave the 20mm on the front and have the 30mm on the back milled down to 20mm, should fit perfect

 

OmegaSteve, just interested in who in your area you use for servicing. I'm in Bristol area and looking for where to take my 348.

 

I put 360 wheels on my 328, which resulted in a 12mm spacer effect in the front and a 25mm spacer effect in the rear. You can really tell that after adding the wheels the neg camber changed.

I would suggest an alignment ASAP, or you may get very uneven tirewear in the rear.