I've heard of problems in the past with centering rings and getting an unbalanced ride. I've never owned rims that required this in the past. Can someone shed some light on this?

Thanks!

p.s. I'm looking at the GTN's or CE28N's.

 

What problems did you hear of?

 

The Volk rings are aluminum and are pretty thin on the FD. The lugs are tapered, too, which will center the wheel even without the ring. I lost one of mine, and they seem to be hard to get. If you can order an extra one or an extra set, I'll buy them from you.

-Max

 

Hey Max, take a look at the CE28 thread that Manny stickied. Go toward the bottom and you'll see pix of, among other things, the centering rings that just arrived with my CE28Ns. I swear that mine feel more like some kind of plastic (feels like a teflon or other self lubricating plastic), instead of aluminum. They're a dark grey color too.

Did they send you regular shiny aluminum rings with your Volks? Manny raised the question of melting plastic rings at the track, which seems a valid concern to me. If it's a high-temp plastic, maybe it's fine. Otherwise, it's one of these options:
- get metal rings from Volk (if possible)
- get metal rings machined (somewhere)
- go without

Now on that last option, I have been wondering why the rings are necessary. If the car came with strictly hubcentric wheels, then the lugnuts would have been flat bottomed. And if the car was strictly lugcentric, they could have made the wheel center holes bigger, or left the lip off the hub. It seems that Mazda made the car lug&hubcentric. So, looking at my new Volks, it seems to me that I should be able to ditch the spacer, and the lugs (if properly tightened) would center the wheel as you pointed out. Did you notice any problems running without a centering ring on that one wheel?

Rishie, care to chime in here?

 

I suspect that the Volks are NOT hubcentric WITHOUT the hubcentric rings.

Only Fikses, Kinesis, and other high-end wheels come with hubcentric wheels.

I believe CCW also comes hubcentric if you purchase the race-only wheels (without centercaps). You can also get CCWs in street trim with hubcentric centercaps which are required to be mounted when using the wheels on the car...

 

the problems I've heard are simply that they can feel out of balance.

when is hubcentric better than lugcentric? I can see where having the center of the wheel aligned with the center of the hub is a good thing, but I also would imagine 5 lug centering nuts would be the same. Actually some of each sounds good.

Also- why do only the "high end" wheels do hubcentric? I seem to recall my Blitz 03's on my Supra didn't have the rings....

A little background why either is good or bad would be helpful..

 

Read this article from Tire Rack:

http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/centerb.htm

You'll note that they recommend forged aluminum centering rings NOT plastic or teflon rings.

As I mentioned in the above post, High End wheels from Fikse, Forgeline, HRE, Kinesis, and custom-made wheels from Complete Custom Wheels have the wheel centerbores machined to be vehicle-specific.

In CCW's case, you can have the wheels made as race-only which are machined to fit directly on the hub WITHOUT the attractive button-style center cap OR you can have John Purner make your wheels machined to use the button-style centercap, which MAKES the wheel hubcentric when the CCW wheel is used with the centercap.

Most other wheel makers have centerbores that are too large so the wheel can be used with many different vehicles that share the same bolt pattern. This is why the hubcentric rings must be used so that the "universal" fit wheel can mate PROPERLY with your car's hub diameter.

As an example the FD's hub diameter is 67.1 mm. My old SSR Comps hub centerbore was 73 mm, BUT Tire Rack supplied very high quality 73 to 67 mm centering rings so the wheels bolted up nicely to the FD's hub.

I'm not sure how Rishie sets up the centering rings for his customers. It seems to me that Rishie can coordinate with Mackin Industries, and request that Volk sends us only the forged aluminum centering rings, NOT the cheap plastic/teflon ones!

OR, I guess we could go with Fikse, Forgeline, HRE, Kinesis, or for the money conscious--CCWs. These wheel manufacturers machine vehicle-specific centerbores for their customers.

FWIW, CCW currently makes the widest wheels that will fit underneath an FD Rx7 with stock bodywork, and stock style springs: 9.5-inches wide up front, and 10-inches wide in back with 2-inch offsets.

 

Cheap hubcentric rings, or rings that don't work is completely unacceptable from a Volk Racing Wheel--Nuff Said!

 

Well, of course, no wheel is hubcentric unless the center bore is properly sized and positioned. And reading the Tire Rack blurb confirms what I suspected about running without rings on these wheels.

But in any event, Rishie's checking into it for me.

 

I don't know that one is better than the other, but hubcentric makes it easier to make sure the wheel is centered when the nuts are tightened. Note that the Tire Rack blurb confirms that centering nuts (on a wheel desiged for them) would center the wheel provided that you take care in tightening them off the ground.

Note that the stock wheels are also hubcentric, and I would not consider them "high end". Of course, they are damn good wheels in their size-- I just don't want that size anymore

 

As Sleep said - it's really a matter of economics, and is related to the fact that hubcentric wheels are more expensive (not inherently better quality).

In other words, if a company wanted to make wheels in volume (and therefore take advantage of economies of scale, more wheels = lower manufacturing cost per unit), they would need to make each wheel fit as many apps as possible. This means a generic hub size with hub spacers to fit a specific app, along with multiple bolt patterns.

Because Kenesis, Fikse, etc essentially makes wheels to order (and charge alot, hehe), they can afford to make the wheels with the correct hub size.

The FD wheels are hubcentric because they were made just for the FD.

The only draw back I've found with plastic rings is that they have a habit of sticking to the hub. Really annoying more then anything else. The aluminum rings were much nicer though.

 

Yep, I think that we all understand that economic reasons explain why and when you see wheels with different means of hubcentric fitment in this application.

Picking up on the Tire Rack's blurb, I would expect a plastic ring to compress more than an aluminum ring under load (i.e., putting the wheel on the ground before tightening the nuts), and therefore not do as good of a job holding the wheel centered as you tighten the nuts. And I would expect the situation to be worse if the hub, ring and wheel were hot. And if these things are true, then you may as well tighten the nuts with the wheel off the ground and throw away the rings, since you would not be able to rely on them.

Do you think that your plastic rings were sticking because they started to melt? Did you get them to smoke at TWS?

 

I did read the CE28N thread after I posted, and it sounds like we have different hub rings. Mine are unmistakably aluminum (light metal, pings when you drop them). I don't have any problems with the wheel that I lost the hub ring for. It seems like a good hub ring might take some stress off the wheel studs by taking some of the load itself, but that doesn't seem to be a major issue. I haven't heard of any broken wheel studs for FDs. The tapered lug nuts should be enough to center the wheel and avoid imbalance, though I could imagine that it would be of value to be more dilligent in re-torquing the lug nuts if you don't have solid hub rings. Overall, I don't think it is that big a deal either way, but I feel better with the aluminum hub rings than without them. It might just be in my head though.

-Max

 

Well, the rings I had were converting something like a 71mm to the 67.1, so I can see how a thicker ring could deflect/deform more. Then again, I've never 'smoked' my brakes before...

I'm thinking the rings stuck as that my hub centers are less then smooth (and the plastic rings did not stay in place on the wheel as well as the alum ones, which snapped in place with a satisfying 'snick'), but heat certainly could have played a role.

Actually, my first set of wheels - a set of SSRs - were not hub centric and I did not have rings (and I did not know any better anyways). I would snug the lugs down as much as possible with the wheel in the air, then torque down once I set the wheel down - and never had any balance problems. So yeah, I think the rings are just 'extras', just in case.

 

Wow, all the "big boys" came to play on this thread...we're just missing Rishie and rynberg

My old 16-inch Integral A2s centering rings eventually press-fitted and fused with the wheel centerbore from 3 years of track, autocross, and road use. The Integral's rings were aluminum...

dclin make a good point, and I apologize for implying that Volk wheels are not of similar quality to Fikse, Forgeline, Kinesis, HRE, CCW, etc. I was merely pointing out that those manufactureres make wheels specific for their customer's vehicles (EXPENSIVE), and thus ARE hubcentric, as well as lugcentric.

BTW, having the wheel hub and lugcentric makes me feel better on track. There have been times where I'd completely forgotten to check my lugnut torques. The dead giveaway is when I feel my wheels shuddering upon braking or cornering--I immediately slap my helmet in Homer Simpson style--(DOH!), pit-in, and have my "crew guy" torque them down before going back out... If the wheels were not lug or hubcentric, the wheels would have been way out of balance, to the point of probably damaging the wheel bearings.

For those who don't know, the heat from braking & cornering expands all the metal. When the brakes and wheels cool down to ambient temps, the lug nuts have loosened ever so slightly from the expansion and subsequent contraction of the metal. After a few cycles of this, you'd be surprised how loose the lugs get!

 

Thanks for taking a look Max. We'll see what Rishie comes back with on getting more of these things....

 

Note to Volk: send Manny teflon coated rings machined from *diamond*

Yeah, I always retorque between sessions. And some of the nuts on each wheel always seem to need it. Now, I have not seen someone's wheel come flying off because they don't do this, but if it happens, it won't be my wheel

 

I have seen a few wheels come off at track events -- scary! I am not sure if they were loose lug nuts, broken studs or what (perhaps both). I try to re-torque the lug nuts before I go out for each session. I've galled a few lug nuts trying to loosen them for re-torquing when they are hot, so I bring spares (and have a rather mis-matched set on the car now ).

My brakes got so hot once that I lost center caps off the stock wheels (I know, I should have removed them first) and even melted the plastic valve stem cap on the side that faces the brakes one time. I think my wheel bearings are okay, but I am somewhat surprised by that.

-Max

 

Max, you're a wild man..."mad max"...hee hee

 

Seems like a higher risk to torque hot lugs/studs.

 

You don't want to retorque lugs after the wheels and brakes are hot. This will over-torque them due to the fact that the studs do get hot and expand slightly. If you retorque them they will shrink as they cool, doing terrible things for the stud and the lugnut at the end of the day.

I would never ever race a wheel that was not hubcentric or at minimum did not have metal centering rings.

With the wheel being hubcentric not only is the wheel more likely to be aligned properly with the hub, but the weight of the car will be carried on the hub itself and NOT on the wheel studs. The only loads the wheel studs will see are tension in cornering along with bending under acceleration and braking. I don't like adding the weight of the car to their job.

Even cone shaped lug bores are not going to ensure the wheel is centered. We have five studs on an FD. Unless you are going to very slowly tighten all 5 of them simultaneously you can't ensure that the studs are all equally loaded. If you just snug the first one hand tight it's already centered the wheel under it, whether that's actually centered on the hub or not you dunno.

Lug bores are cone shaped to help grip the lug and to provide a larger seat area for the lugnut. They are not cone shaped for hub alignment purposes.