Anybody running 1.5in wheel spacers with stock wheels? I love my stock look just want more stance

[Quyonmob]

I'm running 1 1/4" with 2 different sets of stock wheels, 1 1/2" will work fine.

Did you have to cut lugs to have them clear the wheels?

 

[Rader]

Did you have to cut lugs to have them clear the wheels?

No, I have 2 sets of stock Ram wheels 20" that were stock on the truck and a set of earlier stock 17"X 8"s. On the back side of the stock aluminum wheels between the lug holes there is pockets in the castings, the pockets are over an inch deep so the protruding lug bolts are not even close to touching the wheel.

 

[WHYTLIE03]

I initially was running 1” Bora spacers with some Replica Hellcats. The factory wheel studs just barely contacted the pocket in the back of the Replica wheels. I didn’t want to cut the stock wheel studs and accepted that I’d install some factory style flares (2500 flares though). I ended up buying 1.5” Bora spacers and have been running those.

I don’t have an answer for the original question, however I am looking to get rid of the 1” Bora spacers.

 

[CVX20]

And everyone on this forum with non factory offset wheels and or spacers are having rampant wheel bearing and ball joint failures?

If so , why dont we hear about it ?

They won't fail instantly but they will fail a lot sooner.Like I said it's simple physics.An understanding of the frt end geometry would get to the same conclusion.Thing is FCA is putting crappy ball joints in these trucks to start with so why exasperate it?

 

[Joes1500]

They won't fail instantly but they will fail a lot sooner.Like I said it's simple physics.An understanding of the frt end geometry would get to the same conclusion.Thing is FCA is putting crappy ball joints in these trucks to start with so why exasperate it?

And if you haul anything or tow anything or hit any potholes or railroad tracks or travel bumpy roads they are also going to wear out faster.

This has been beat to death over and over and over.

Still haven't had anyone give me an explanation of , if in fact spacers are so bad, then why does the factory put about a 4 or 5 inch spacer on the front of every dually ?

Or be able to tell us why all the available factory wheels dont have the same offset ? Different offsets would be just the same as running spacers.

 

[CVX20]

And if you haul anything or tow anything or hit any potholes or railroad tracks or travel bumpy roads they are also going to wear out faster.

This has been beat to death over and over and over.

Still haven't had anyone give me an explanation of , if in fact spacers are so bad, then why does the factory put about a 4 or 5 inch spacer on the front of every dually ?

Or be able to tell us why all the available factory wheels dont have the same offset ? Different offsets would be just the same as running spacers.




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So have you ever studied frt end geometry and alignment?Have you ever studied Physics?Levers to be exact.As far as dually's go the ball joints are 3 times the size so they can take a bit more.If you hang a wheel out a couple of inches the weight of the vehicle pushing down on the wheel will force the top of the wheel inward and the bottom of the wheel outward.All that leverage is transferred right to the ball joints and wheel brgs.Not that hard to understand really.I personally couldn't care less if you want you wheels hanging out like a Tonka truck even though I think it looks pretty stupid but you can't tell me it isn't harder on parts.

 

[Joes1500]

So have you ever studied frt end geometry and alignment?Have you ever studied Physics?Levers to be exact.As far as dually's go the ball joints are 3 times the size so they can take a bit more.If you hang a wheel out a couple of inches the weight of the vehicle pushing down on the wheel will force the top of the wheel inward and the bottom of the wheel outward.All that leverage is transferred right to the ball joints and wheel brgs.Not that hard to understand really.I personally couldn't care less if you want you wheels hanging out like a Tonka truck even though I think it looks pretty stupid but you can't tell me it isn't harder on parts.

To answer your question ,yes I have.

First thing to understand about spacers. All they are doing is changing the back spacing on an existing wheel.

There is alot more at play then your simple lever analogy. You have to take into consideration the relationship of the center of the tire, the overall weight being applied, and the plane to which it is applied . Then figure how much of that weight is being transferred as leverage to the mounting face of the wheel.

Depending on the back spacing of the wheel , this could be negative, zero or a substantial amount. Just between the several available stock wheels on a 4th gen , i believe there is almost an inch difference in factory back spacing . Then you can figure the distance from the ball joints and figure how much side force is being applied to them.

Again as I have said before . Running a spacer with a stock or respectful back spaced wheel is no worse than loading your truck with weight , pulling a trailer or hitting bumps.

Now if you are going to run spacers with say a 12/14 inch wide wheel with 44 or 51 or whatever back spacing, then you are going to see premature failure.

So if your theory is correct , are we to believe that the factory wheels with less back spacing will wear our trucks out faster than the ones with more ?

 

[CVX20]

To answer your question ,yes I have.

First thing to understand about spacers. All they are doing is changing the back spacing on an existing wheel.

There is alot more at play then your simple lever analogy. You have to take into consideration the relationship of the center of the tire, the overall weight being applied, and the plane to which it is applied . Then figure how much of that weight is being transferred as leverage to the mounting face of the wheel.

Depending on the back spacing of the wheel , this could be negative, zero or a substantial amount. Just between the several available stock wheels on a 4th gen , i believe there is almost an inch difference in factory back spacing . Then you can figure the distance from the ball joints and figure how much side force is being applied to them.

Again as I have said before . Running a spacer with a stock or respectful back spaced wheel is no worse than loading your truck with weight , pulling a trailer or hitting bumps.

Now if you are going to run spacers with say a 12/14 inch wide wheel with 44 or 51 or whatever back spacing, then you are going to see premature failure.

So if your theory is correct , are we to believe that the factory wheels with less back spacing will wear our trucks out faster than the ones with more ?

Thing is you don't carry weight,pull a trailer or run over bumps 100% of the time.Spacers and offsets are 100% of the time.You kind of won part of my argument for me in this post from your other post about the 5 inch spacer on the heavy duty.Take a look at the rim that goes on a dually and where the center of the tire ends up.And no I never stated that less backspacing will wear anything faster although if you could put the center of the wheel too far in yes it would have a similar effect.You just go ahead and put whatever spin you want on it but at the end of the day if you deviate from the factory engineering it will have consequences and in this case it is ball joints and wheel brgs.Pretty obvious that I'm not changing your mind and that's fine but you'll never change mine either.An engineer could could probably come up with numbers for the accelerated wear but I'm not.Just a guy that's wrenched for a living for a long,long time and seen the consequences.

 

[billyw]

The OEM wheels leave most of wheel/tire inside the center line/plane. Adding a 3/4" spacer will bring the wheel (mostly) directly over the center line, which "mathematically" should reduce wear I would think. Going an additional 3/4" to the full 1.5" of back spacing is shifting the lever force to the outside vs the inside. But it's essentially the same amount of static force, right?.

 

[Cdn_Hemi_Dude]

I've had 3 rams, a 2014, 2018 and now a 2022 classic. All basically the same truck. I've run 17" rims/tires all the way up to 24" rims/tires, all slightly different width and offset. For what it's worth and from my experience, those super neg offset rims ie. 12 inch wide with a -44 offset will wear your steering and suspension parts within a few years and will make a mess of the paint along the sides of the truck, even with flares Ask me how I know .
As for spacers, I think anything up 1.5 inch should be fine. OEM rims have approx 19mm offset, so a 1.5 inch spacer will not overly stress steering and suspension as they're not moving them too far past centre (0 offset) They'll essentially give a stock rim an equivalent -20mm offset which is less than an inch past centre.
Also, no need to trim lugs with stock rims with a 1.5 spacer. The rims have a void between the lug holes which allow the lugs to extend into the void while still allowing the rim to make full contact with the spacer.
Hope this helps guys.
Cheers