Wheel Offset And Flush Fitment Guide - Gettin' Off

Another misconception is that a higher offset number means more brake clearance. Brake clearance is determined by face and spoke design. You can have a +100 ET rim with a super-concave face that has no room for large calipers. Just the same, you can have a -100 ET rim with such a curved convex face, that it allows for large aftermarket calipers.

Reverse Lip

Older style wheels commonly came with the normal lip/barrel. Later on when large lips became more popular, manufacturers started producing more reverse barrels. Having a reverse barrel meant the drop was on the inner side of the rim. This creates a larger, deeper lip and gives more room for a larger face. While popular with luxury wheels, this method makes the rim heavier and weaker than a regular design. Having a reverse barrel lip also means that you mount the tire with the wheel faced down. Regular barrel lips are more common with a performance-oriented wheel. It gives more room for larger rotors, calipers and tends to be lighter and stronger.

Parts Shop MAX has spacers in 3, 5 and 7mm sizes. This allows you to stack them perfectly to make up for the lack of offset.

Small spacers will reduce the length of lug stud thread available for your lug nuts. You will then have to resort to getting longer extended lug studs. But, if you need a spacer thick enough like pictured, then it will come with studs of its own.

Getting the perfect stance is not an easy task. It can vary with offset, rim width, tire size, ride height and even rim diameter. It's like black magic and most people don't want to share their secrets after doing all their own trial and error. Hopefully, we've shed enough light on the subject to make you comfortable on tackling the job yourself. We're not saying get your wheels crazy far out there like a longboard skateboard. Each car has a different style that suits it perfectly. There are too many cars out there with nice wheels and tons of parts yet still don't have the right stance. Don't be one of them.

First let's draw a line right down the middle of the width of the rim. Rim faces can be designed to mount anywhere in the width. Each car has a small range of what it can handle. Even without taking lug pattern into consideration, no wheel is universal. If the face mounting point is on the line then it has zero offset. As the face moves forward towards the outer edge of the barrel then it has a positive offset. Vice versa, if the rim moves back away from the front then it has a negative offset. The distance that it is off from the center is measured in millimeters. It does seem weird that as you go with a lower number offset you have more lip. I'm not sure why the positive number is on that side and not reversed but that's just how it is. Lip size and offset are inversely related and that confuses most people.

Getting that flush wheel fitment means doing a bit of math. Before ordering your wheels figure out what width you want. Then with your car at the ride height you want to be at, measure the distance from your rim lip to your fender. The difference between your fender and rim is the distance your new wheels will have to come out. It can be quite an algebra problem so if you're not a math whiz there are plenty of online offset calculators. Just do a search on the web. One that we like to use is http://www.1010tires.com/WheelOffsetCalculator.asp. If you've already have a set of wheels but they aren't sitting wide enough, you don't have to go out a buy a new set of wheels. What you can do is add wheel spacers to push your wheels out. There are plenty of different wheel spacers out there.

Depending on your spacer thickness, you could end up with a spacer that isn't thick enough to clear you old studs. Now you have twice as many studs sticking out. Make sure your wheels have pockets behind the face and in between your lug holes before committing to this type of setup.