Are we hub centric?

wun911 · Postby **wun911** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:17 am

Apparently I need these "73/54 hubcentric rings"
Are the rings heavy?
Better still I can drive around without them?

philz · Postby **philz** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:28 am

Yes you will need them.

If you don't have them, you will be transferring all of the cars weight onto the lug nuts.

The lug nuts aren't supposed to do this... the lugnuts job is to only hold the wheel to the car.

Also the hub ring will center the wheel properly.

Edit: and this is what happened to someone who did not put hub rings on... http://www.planetsoarer.com/offset/studs.htm

Garry · Postby **Garry** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:30 am

I have plastic ones on my car. They weigh 4/5's of stuff all. But I'm sure you'll be able to notice the difference. :roll:

hks_kansei · Postby **hks_kansei** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:10 pm

I remember the mornign before heading up to DECA for a motorkhana a mate of mine drove to my place, on the way he rung me and said "dude, when I get there can you have a look at my wheels, the steering's a bit wobbly"

so he arrives in my driveway and I notice that his wheels arent actually bolted on :shock:

it turns out that the rims he bought had the hub rings, but they never told him when they installed them.

so he just put his stock wheels back on for the comp, and the rings remained on the hub, which meant his stockers werent centred, and werent able to sit flush on the hub.

we removed the rings and put the stockers back on and all was good again, and he competed without a wheel comong off.

the moral, always check that the hub rings arent stuck to the hub when you remove the wheel.

AB7 · Postby **AB7** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:14 pm

wun911 wrote:Apparently I need these "73/54 hubcentric rings"
Are the rings heavy?
Better still I can drive around without them?

You definitely need it for your RPF1, go to your local wheels shop...they should be able to sell you a set.

wun911 · Postby **wun911** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:00 pm

Whoa dude the wheel fell off!
Ohh I understand now the enkei has a 73 mm hole and our hub fits a 54 mm hole?

Looking for CF hubcentric rings now...

Hammer · Postby **Hammer** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:01 pm

I'm all for hub or spigot rings. Highly recommended. Mine cost $10 each fitted.

If you're not sure of the size needed, just drive the car with the wheels to a wheels/tyre specialty shop and more than likely they'll have the size you need in stock.

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:22 pm

AB7 wrote:
wun911 wrote:Apparently I need these "73/54 hubcentric rings"
Are the rings heavy?
Better still I can drive around without them?

You definitely need it for your RPF1, go to your local wheels shop...they should be able to sell you a set.

Nooooo.....

If you 'need' these, you have a problem with your wheels. Providing your wheels have the tapered holes for the wheel nuts, and your wheel nuts have the matching taper, you do NOT need these. The nuts and their mating surfaces provide all the locating/aligning your wheels need. Imagine you have a 'centreing ring', if it is actually doing anything, it must be doing it in conflict with the forces applied through the locating action of the wheel nuts.

If you really believe you need these inventions of the devil, throw away your tapered nuts, get nuts with flat surfaces and big flat washers to hold the wheels on, and allow your wheels to be located by these 'centreing rings'. And if you think that makes sense ... :roll:

I have run RP-F1s in competition for several years, and have NEVER felt the need for anything more than my trusty, old fashioned wheel nuts.

:mrgreen:

wun911 · Postby **wun911** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:40 pm

I have heard we are lug centric.

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:45 pm

philz wrote:Yes you will need them.

If you don't have them, you will be transferring all of the cars weight onto the lug nuts.

The lug nuts aren't supposed to do this... the lugnuts job is to only hold the wheel to the car.

Also the hub ring will center the wheel properly.

Edit: and this is what happened to someone who did not put hub rings on... http://www.planetsoarer.com/offset/studs.htm

Bovine excreta, or something like that :wink:

.

Read that carefully, and you will see that it is talking about very different wheel fixing than that used on our MX5s. Our wheel nuts both retain and locate the wheels. At least, my MX5 has as standard, tapered wheel nuts and matching tapers in the wheels, as do my RP-F1s, and my ROH Strykers, and my new racing wheels.

In any event, it easy to place the blame elsewhere when it might be simply a case of not tightening the wheel nuts in the first place - it happens to the best of us :oops:

ask me how I know!

Given the nuts used on the wheels in that link have an obvious locating spigot, (a) I doubt that a 'centreing ring' would do a great deal, and (b) it seems to me more likely that the problem was caused by loose wheel nuts, than the absence of one of those rings.

Let's remember that the internet is a great vehicle for the dissemination of all kinds of misinformation, and keep our common sense filter on high :lol:

Garry · Postby **Garry** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:48 pm

My mate had a different experience with his S3 Greenmachine. He got some new wheels but the holes for the hubs were oversized. He didn't get hub rings and was having wheel balance problems. He got a set of hub rings and hasn't had a balance problem since. He was using tapered nuts before he got the hub rings too.

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:04 pm

Garry wrote:My mate had a different experience with his S3 Greenmachine. He got some new wheels but the holes for the hubs were oversized. He didn't get hub rings and was having wheel balance problems. He got a set of hub rings and hasn't had a balance problem since. He was using tapered nuts before he got the hub rings too.

That's interesting Garry. It would lead me to ask exactly why it fixed the problem. If it is holding the wheel against the 'natural' locating action of tapered nuts, (a) that's a big ask, and must be setting up some serious stress in the wheel centre, and (b) it suggests the wheel has been incorrectly manufactured.

On the other hand, if the nuts are not locating the wheel properly (ie allowing the wheel to move), and (b) above does not apply, they must be the wrong nuts (for those wheels). IIRC, there is more than one taper, or perhaps there are other dimensional issues with the nuts and the tapers they are supposed to seat in.

Does your mate regularly check his wheel nuts? If so, I would be interested to know if he finds that he has to retighten the nuts, perhaps more than once?

:mrgreen:

Garry · Postby **Garry** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:28 pm

Does your mate regularly check his wheel nuts? If so, I would be interested to know if he finds that he has to retighten the nuts, perhaps more than once?

hahahahaha The only thing my mate knows about cars is where to put the ignition key and the petrol. So no, he hasn't retightened his wheel nuts. Audi's use studs rather than nuts to hold the wheels on. I'm not sure if that makes a difference though the nut part of the stud has a taper that fits into a taper in the wheel.

AB7 · Postby **AB7** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:43 pm

GreenMachine, your point is valid but the ring will add additional support to the rims. I guess you can get by without them, but for $10 its a great investment.

Hammer · Postby **Hammer** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:50 pm

Most aftermarket wheels have bigger hub holes than what the hubs are on the car purely to get a bigger market segment with one type of wheel. And if you don't get a hub ring, the lug nuts are bearing the weight of the car rather than the wheel hub.

And as per Garry's comments (as well as personal experience at my end), there could be an on-going issues with wheel vibration/balancing (even if each individual wheels are rightly balance).