Hubcentric wheels on Ultralite

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EviL,
that is cool. $60? somehow is suspect it will cost me much more.
do you have any pics of the rings?

[RGTorque]

it was an easy job for my guy as he does it for many locals with custom cars. may cost more if its not a common job. i can try to get a pic for you tomorrow.

[RGTorque]

so looks like i was mistaken. my wheels were just machined out, no centering rings were made. in case your wondering. they are 18x8 et 35

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roman,
thanks for posting the pic, that's helpful.
i think i'll consult a machinist before i specify the bore size.

[jimrankin]

The rear hubs have so little area for centering that they would not give any appreciable support. The front wildwood hubs are tapered cone with radius at the mating surface so machining to tolerance would be complicated if possible at all.
I have a lot of track and road miles and worn through two sets of tires on my Team Dynamics wheels and have had no problems with lug centric centering.
I was really pleased with the wheels but due to no "blanks" being available I had to wait months till the next casting cycle. After they were made they shipped by SLOW boat and took weeks to get to me. I was not asked if I wanted to pick a different shipping mode but could not believe that air was not used on a light fairly expensive product.

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jim,
i ordered the wheels about 6 weeks ago.at the time i ordered them td estimated 8 weeks, so hopefully i will be receiving them in a few weeks. the rears with the subie hubs will be hub centric. unless i find a machine shop that can make centering rings with a radius, the fronts will be lug centric. that's not a very high priority for me now though so they they'll probably stay lug centric.
i wouldn't think "support" would be an issue for the centering rings unless the lugs were loose. if the lugs are torqued down the load should be transferred to the hub face though static friction, right? i don't know how much shear load a small centering ring can handle, but if my lugs were loose i'd rather have a small centering ring than none!

[jimrankin]

I have noticed that a lot of newer cars come with PLASTIC centering rings that seem to only function as a place holder for the wheels until the lug nuts are torqued down. On something as light as a 7 I don't think any centering would ever be needed as the stress on the lug studs is going to be very limited unless you actually hit something, and then even a centering ring may not be of much help. A lot of the aftermarket cast wheels come with large center radius, probably so they fit a lot of different cars with the same bolt pattern but different center bores.

[jimrankin]

RSS,

Did they give you a shipping method? What size wheels did you end up ordering? JR

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17x8 offset 38 73.1mm bore
17x9 offset 45 56.1mm bore

will be coming on the lusitania, i believe.

[DeanD3W]

Maybe I should have posted this earlier, but with a bunch of small kids and a business to run, and a 2000 mile family move to Austin, I have haven't been lurking around much.

Maybe there is a hub & wheel expert out there that will tell me that I'm wrong, but I would say that there is never a reason for "hub-centric" fitting of wheels on hubs.

I'm a life long car nut, former FSAE team member, mechanical engineer, and I teach "Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing" (GD&T) in industry, which is all about parts fitting together. With hub-centric, all I can see is a ring fighting the lugs for centering, with neither winning in an absolute sense.

The plastic rings for an assembly aid make sense though.

Best Regards,
Dean