Tire/Strut Clearance Question

[NocheDeZippeh]

Do others who run tight tire/strut clearances see some (acceptable?) rubbing?

I'm running 245/40 Michelin PS4S on Apex EC-7 18x9 et31 wheels with a 3mm Apex spacer, and I measure the tire/strut gap to be 0.320 inches ( = 8.1mm).
I figured 8mm of clearance would have been plenty to avoid any rubbing, but it looks like there is some. I also included a picture (LF side) showing the gap without the spacer, where I measured 5.1mm of clearance, as expected.

The car sees lots of spirited driving on twisty mountain roads - does it look like I need more tire/strut clearance?

[bucketfoot]

You should be fine. I'd be shocked if you are really rubbing.

I run 17x9 Apex ARC8 ET30 wheels with 245/40 RE71Rs (no spacers) as my track setup and have not had any rubbing (I measured 4.5mm of clearance). I can promise you this is at a much more spirited pace than you will get on your twisty mountain roads

[bucketfoot]

You might want to try putting some duct tape on the strut and then do some spirited driving. That's what I did to make it really easy to see if I had any rubbing.

[NocheDeZippeh]

Thanks for the feedback. When I got the tires/wheels last year, I figured the clearance would be about 5mm. I'd read of guys going with as little as 2mm, but I wanted some more margin, so I got some 3mm spacers (and 29mm bolts) so as not to change the scrub radius too much.

Anyway, I've been running it for about 16K miles without problems, but the marks on the strut had me wondering. I'll do the tape test and see what it looks like.

[PrematureApex]

I'd do the tape thing, and see if it rubs through. Obviously a combination of bearing play and tire deflection (runout from the opposite side being flexed).



A non-issue I'm sure.