Whether you hate it or love it, the stance, hellaflush, fitted, whatever-you-want-to-call-it look is here to stay. But if you’re a noob, here are some things you should know before trying it yourself.
The whole subject is so simple, even a caveman could do it! Doesn’t matter if you own a beat-up Honda, baller Nissan GT-R, all-wheel drive Subaru or even a minivan. With a low ride height and a set of wheels that sit flush with your fenders, your piece of art could be the next talk of the Internet.
While the exact history of stance in our scene is a bit grey, most of us agree the styling cue was borrowed from motorsport. Before many of you were even born, race engineers developed cars with a wider track which helped produce less weight transfer, thus offering more cornering grip. Going with wider wheels and tires also increased the contact patch area and made the rubbers stronger against load.
The wide and slammed look carried over to the streets. What many of us fail to realize is that our cars weren’t built the same way as these racers. Alongside their aggressive stance, race engineers developed reinforced hubs, stronger wheel bearings, new aero and stiffer suspension with redesigned geometry—all designed for heavy abuse and a wider track. These modifications made a super-low ride height and crazy wide wheels helpful and safe in competition environments.
So before you go for the ultimate stance, ask yourself if you’re willing to give up some performance in exchange for the look. Here are three things to consider:
1. There’s a limit of how low you can go before the shock is fully compressed and bottoms out. When you go too low, the lack of suspension travel will result in poor ride quality and handling.
There’s also the issue of suspension geometry. When a car leaves the assembly plant, it’s designed with the optimum geometry to give you responsive and stable steering under any condition. So by aggressively lowering your car, you will mess with this happy balance and create more body roll and slower steering. There are also the obvious problems getting in and out of driveways and over speed bumps as well.
2. The second issue pertains with wheels. When you push a wheel out further from the hub by altering the offset, the wheel center is moved away from the center where the contact patch was designed to be. This change in offset alters the scrub radius, which could potentially create a less responsive steering feel and make the car more vulnerable to road shock, tramlining and become less stable in a straight line.
Also remember with wheels that are too pushed out, clearance becomes an issue. When the wheel lips and tires sit beyond the fender edge, it’s more susceptible to rubbing which can cause damage to the tire’s sidewall or your fenders.
3. Lastly, there’s a danger with tire stretching. You can still have a “hellaflush ride” with a proper tire fitment but 95% of the stance crowd stretch. This is when a narrower profile tire is mounted around a wide wheel, thus stretching the sidewalls outward to reach the wheel lip. While it isn’t guaranteed to happen, the tire is more at risk to a blowout or de-beading. The contact patch is also smaller than the wheel’s recommended size, meaning less traction.
Now we’re not saying with all these consequences you shouldn’t try this at home. But you are compromising some handling performance and safety measures your mama wouldn’t approve of. So if you still fancy the style and don’t mind the sacrifices, stance on!
Proper stance consists of the right suspension and wheel components so being low is critical. You can’t have stance with inches of gap between your tires and fender. Duh! So you’re going to want to get your hands on some quality suspension components to get you slammed.