I keep seeing comments regarding 4 to 5 lug adapters that suggest that you would have to have a death wish to use them. This may be true, but in my simple mind, an adapter made of quality material with quality fabrication and attached with quality hardware should be just as capable as an spacer of equal quality.

Granted, you have one less lug to carry the load, but if this is a factor then all stock four lug setups should be suspect. Can somebody shed some light on this please?

Tom

Tom, I agree with you. I've put some on my car but have not put the car on the road yet. Before driving it I will replace my standard lugs with the longer ones and then torque each one to (I think) 90ft/lbs, but I will look it up first.

I posed that question before buying them and it seemed many have heard of failures but no one came forward and actually saw a failure. (Urban legend kind of thing) When nobody came forth with actual failure results I decided to buy and install them. They can't be much weaker than 4 lug set-ups other than the extra forces put on them from being further from the wheel but how much can that really be????
BTW my car is just for cruising, not racing.

Allow me. The "affordable" adapters on the market are of 2 general types. First, there are the stamped steel style with studs inserted in less than 1/8" of material, and badly centered with the lug bolts. Hubcentricity is out of the question. The second type are cast light metal of some type with the studs punched through 1/4"-3/8" of questionable cast material. These "MAY" offer hubcentricity, but that's pretty much a dream. In no way can these products be called "quality".

There are spacers available from Porsche which are NOT adapters, they're thick spacers made of quality material which slip over the existing studs, are precisely locared and secured with real lug nuts. They have a set of studs installed and are used to move the wheel out from the hub. They're precise, expensive, and approved by the TUV, which makes the USDOT look like "run what ya brung".

I won't install 'em, won't test drive a customer's car that has 'em installed, and likely wouldn't sell 'em, even if you offered me bags o'bucks.

The Cap'n

If your worried at all, these should be real strong ( and ouch expensive)
http://www.autoatlanta.net/action.lasso?-d...=10&-search

For $461 you can be close to a five lug conversion and not get black flagged for adapters at a cheesy Autocross.....

please take a look at the 356 SC.
They use stock adapters made from aluminum.
They use very small bolts to attach
They seem to have lasted for a few years..

Rich

my 58 vw bug has had adapters on it since 1969 holding 1969 mach 1 wheels. I think they will out last me, course the bug will only go about 95 and the wheels aren't very big with much offset.

I don't like them. I don't know about "YOU WILL DIE", but I am not all that confident in the four-to-five adaptors I've seen. Take a look at the bolt patterns in the adaptors. One bolt is the same, and there is very little material around a couple more of them because of the different bolt patterns. And that's the case even on the adaptors that are decently made.

I also know that they are flat-out illegal to use autoXing or on the Big Track with the local PCA. And I don't know about you, but I drive my 914 kind of hard...

--DD

stock stuff redone:

early units from Eric/PMB $445 Final cost $395!! (after you get your core charge back)

Late units from Eric/PMB Final Cost $430!! (after you get your core charge back)

Sure, that's going to leave you needing to buy redrilled fronts each time, but they are about the same as 911 rotors anyways??

(I suppose this didn't really answer the question of 'why are they bad?')

Anyone ever see an adapter fail? I never have.

If, as the good Kap'n says, the "cheap" adapters are junk and the "good" AA adapters cost as much as a full conversion, this would explain the comments against them. However, there doesn't appear to be much, if any hard evidence of failures, at least not on the street. I think we can all agree, in a perfect world we'd all have a 5 lug conversion done, but until that day comes, I'm using my best judgement.

BTW, I'm actually planning to do my conversion w/o adapters since I already have the tooling and THINK I have the skills. Now that could be scarier than cheap adapters.

Tom

I have a brand new set of Erics front rotors that I got from ConeDodger. I went with a 911 front instead. I'll let them go for $180 for a fellow cheesehead. Drive on down and pick them up.

I will have to protest the selling of those rotors to only Cheeseheads. Please expand this to Minnesota as well... Those are after all primo 70K mile rotors that have been rebuilt by the E-Doggie...

As I mentioned in the WTB thread in the classifieds, I have seen a set of 4-5 lug adaptors fail at an autocross. Corvettes of Minnesota Minnesota Air National Guard Super Autocross (COMMANGSAC) at the Mpls/St Paul International Airport in the 1980's. The car was doing perhaps 35mph on a timed lap and we all heard a loud snap. The car veered crazily toward cone workers and was throwing sparks all over the place. There was body and suspension damage. I never saw the car back at an autocross so I am not sure it was ever fixed. No one was hurt, but as I said in the WTB thread, imagine freeway speed. They were illegal in autocross then, but without taking the wheel off a tech inspector would never catch it. I was the tech inspector... For some cars, this autocross had 60mph sections.

Do it right or leave it alone. These cars are beautiful even 4 lug...

A cheesehead special, huh? Tempting jmill, specially since I'll be in Mukwonogo tomorrow anyway, but I've got a set of 71 rotors with the 5 lug bosses ready to go. Once I screw those up, I'll be in touch.

Tom

Might not work for you. The rotors I have are 73-76.

I have personally seen multiple adapter failures over the 36 years I've been a professional German car tech. There, you have a non-urban legend source, and you can feel free to quote me. A note about the AA spacers/adapters. If you read the full description, you'll see that the wheels are spaced out an inch, and that flared fenders are necessary to allow room to actually install wheels and tires on the car.

The Cap'n

Yes I have seen the VW ones fail. They crack between the o.e. holes and the new studs.

That said I ran a set of VW to Chevy adapters for 5 years on my Baja, and never had an issue, and I was turning 31 x 10.50 BFG all terrains. I knew going in what they did and checked them on a very regular basis.

I can expand the Cheesehead special to Minnesota. However, I will need a signed affidavit stating that they hate the Vikings more than venereal warts.

They can be a Twins fan. I felt sorry for them the last time I was there. Everybody knows that baseball is played outside on real grass. WTF is up with that blimp they call a stadium.

Hurtful. Just hurtful... Vile and venomous people they have in Wisconsin.

Hey! Can you still get those Cheesehead hats?

Lol, naw we're not that bad. We do take our sports and beer seriously. Lots of Viking and Bear fans up here. They just don't scream too loud in the bar. I lost more money betting against the Vikings than I care to admit.

The cheesehead hats are still a hot ticket item. I do have to say I've never wore one. They don't cover your ears. We play football outside up here. Don't want to have a lobe freeze off.

I just want to have one to wear when the Packers go to the SB in the next couple years

The Packers are going to move the team to Santa Barbara, CA soon???

That's the only "SB" I can think of that the Packers have a rats ass chance of playing at...

BTW: Didn't the Packers used to be a first tier NFL team a few years ago? What ever happened to them?