Here's the setup. Last week I got race tires mounted on my new CE28Ns. Sweet! The shop mounted them, put them on the car and did an alignment. I drove around a bit to heat cycle an scrub them in. Then Saturday afternoon I remove the race setup to put back my stock wheels/tires. Everything seemed fine at first...

The initial indicator was a shimmy in the steering wheel. Like a wheel was a bit cockeyed. I re-torqued the lug nuts just to make sure and a couple of them seemed to turn a bit more than I expected. The shimmy remained.

Luckily, I didn't drive any Sunday. Then yesterday, Monday, I read this thread talking about CE28N hubcentric rings. My initial reaction was What the fvck, over? Rings? Sure enough, when I went to check there was a gap between the wheel and the hub big enough for me to see my lugs! Yikes. So I took the wheels off and struggled to remove the rings. (The first couple were a btch, but it got very easy after that once I discovered that chiseling directly along the ring radius was not the way to go. It was pretty easy once I learned to hammer the screwdriver nearly perpendicular to the radius, and then just continue along the circumference.)

The damage? I'm hoping no fatigue occurred with the lugs. Other than that everything appears fine with the stock hub and wheels. The Volk rings are a bit messed up, though. The fronts especially since they're so thin - they've been compressed down.

Here are the fronts. Notice the deformation:


And the rears. The portion the wheel was touching is quite evident. That's the entirety of surface that my wheel was in contact with.


There's quite a bit of nastiness left over from my removal efforts, also. I'm going to look into adhering the damn things into the CE28N wheels themselves so I don't have to worry about the pieces of sht getting stuck on the hub again. That's assuming I can get them back into the wheels now that they're out of shape. I wonder what it would cost to purchase new ones?

 

Wow, what a mess. Someone in another thread suggested anti-seize compound on the rings. I think that may solve the issue and I plan to use some on mine. I've used anti-seize on my lugs and brake shims and have never managed to burn it up.

I couldn't tell what the rings were made of, any idea?

 

Aluminum, definitely.

 

damn bro, sorry to hear. hope you get it worked out.

 

Get new rings made w/ both the OD and ID slightly bigger so there's an interferace fit between the ring and the wheel and a slip fit between the ring and the hub. That's the way it should have been from the get go.

 

I currently have the center rings on and I do not plan on removing the wheels until mid may, however, I spoke to David at R&D and he said we do not need to use the rings. I am assuming it is because the shape of the lugnuts.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SilverSurfer
[B]I currently have the center rings on and I do not plan on removing the wheels until mid may, however, I spoke to David at R&D and he said we do not need to use the rings.

 

Alright but i am sure these rings will only last one or two wheel changes Maybe I can get some made as you specified.

 

Why do you say this?

 

Biggest problem I've seen isn't a strength issue that some wheel manufacturer try to scare you away from the cheapo brands with (since studs are now carrying additional sheer load of the car's weight) but more a balancing issue. Most all spin balance machines center up and clamp on the hub hole unless you specifically ask them to mount an adapter (which they hate because it's very time consuming if they even have the adapter) that uses the lug holes and your lug nuts.
I know what you're thinking, if the lug holes are true to the hub hole and the wheel studs are true to the hub, then WTF is the difference? You'd be correct in theory, but in reality ..... must be a tolerance stack-up deal or something I don't know.
So bottom line, if you have the option to go hubcentric you probably should, if the option really isn't there, you might be alright, or you can find a shop that can balance off the lug pattern or some places are still willing to do the old spin them on your car 2D thing (might not work with the Torsen though )
In Keith's case ...... do yourself a favor, use the rings dude