Center Bore
 

Question to the wheel gurus..If a wheel with 57.1 center bore was purchased for our cars we would then need "what" to allow it to fit properly? Thanks in advance for any assisrance :thumbup:

The hub bore for our cars is 56.1. You will need what is called a "hubcentric ring" to adjust for your difference. Talk to your local wheel/tire shops and see if they can get what you need.

If your wheels are lugcentric and lugs are conical w/ the right face and angle, using a proper star pattern installation at the proper torque spec, you do not 'need' hubcentric rings. Haven't used or needed a hubcentric ring in more than a decade. Of course you can put them on if they make you feel better.

If you do buy some, don't buy plastic unless you are comfortable throwing them away w/ your rotors after they melt onto them. Hubcentric rings are more necessary for German cars that use one piece lugbolts.

I'm no wheel expert but a quick Google search shows this (wheel basics):

"There are some people who will say that driving on lug-centric wheels doesn't really matter as long as the lugnuts are the self-centering cone type, as they will adequately center the wheel. These people are wrong. Driving on lug-centric wheels means that any impact will apply shear force to the lug studs, forces at 90 degrees to those the studs are designed to handle. This can cause the lug studs to bend, leading to a vibration in the car as the wheel slips around on the mounting plate, and possibly damaging the wheel's center bore if it has enough play to contact the axle. To prevent this kind of thing, aftermarket wheels will usually need hub-centric spacers, small rings of metal or plastic made with various inside and outside diameters so as to fit inside the wheel hub and then fit over the axle, making a lug-centric fitment into a hub-centric one."

The bit about unintended orthogonal forces acting against the studs, I do believe. Studied forces like that at a basic level in college then again when I got my EIT certification.

http://tires.about.com/od/understand...ric-wheels.htm

all the hub rings do is make it seat easier. Ive ran the plastic ones in my STi for years on autox and track days, and they never melted, even when i cooked my brakes.

Myself and others have beat up and tracked cars w/o rings and had no issues. Like I said, if it makes you feel better go for it. Of course everything is relative so people need to make up their own mind based on their own conditions. Since many of us have had no issues, I stand pat that they are not 'needed'. Recommended? Perhaps. I'd recommend a lot of things, like people actually using their fucking blinkers for example.

I have seen someone w/ a PoS 90's Camaro pull into a shop and have the wheel fall off right after it came to a stop, all the lugs were snapped. Personally I've had 5 cars and never had an issue, but I don't drive GM products nor am I redneck enough to Kentucky Windage my torque specs.

Well I certainly melted mine that I used for Kosei K1s on my old '92 Corolla ages ago. Does smoke billowing out under the front fenders count as cooked brakes? That was street driving btw. Of course, one would expect your STI to have more efficient brakes than a Corolla.

Here's a car from a reliable manufacturer that ran without hub rings:

http://planetsoarer.com/offset/4129.jpg

http://planetsoarer.com/offset/4686.jpg

http://planetsoarer.com/offset/4688.jpg

http://planetsoarer.com/offset/4739.jpg

http://planetsoarer.com/offset/5849.jpg

http://planetsoarer.com/offset/5851.jpg

You can certainly get away with running no hub rings. But why toy with death? Instead of thinking of it as $20 saved, consider it cheap life insurance. In the unlikely event that plastic rings melt, they're not impossible to clean off. Aluminum rings can seize but nothing a screwdriver can't pry off with a tap and WD-40.

Thanks for the help guys.. I meant to close this thread after I got some lesson from Google.. I'll be spending the $25 bucks if I chose to get those wheels.. It's looking like I'll be going with brand new wheels for next summer and should need the hub rings anyways.. Thanks again! ;)

For anyone claiming a plastic hub centric ring will prevent snapped studs, go look at how little meat there is on the ring. It's not going to do anything except hold the wheel centered while you tighten the lugs.

Over torqued/stretched studs are a far more likely cause for the snapped studs. Look closely at the picture, you can see that the stud sheared off in the middle of the depth of the spacer, not at either edge.

If you hit something with the wheel hard enough to snap good condition studs, ring or not those studs are going to shear and the wheel is going to be toast.

Get Aluminum Rings, call it a day.

Can you even get 1mm rings though? All the ones I've used in the past are like 56 --> 70+ mm hub centric rings.

56 --> 57 is tiny and minimal difference.

(Winter tires are from my old Jetta, 57.1mm)

Lol, I want to see what that wheel looks like. You have two perfectly intact lug studs w/ all that body damage? No freaking way that damage was caused by only losing three of five studs. If I had to guess, that big fat cheap ass, poorly cast wheel exploded or separated in half. That's why the rotor is only damaged in the same area. Half the wheel stayed on, the other half took a different trip. No hub ring will save a crap wheel from fracturing itself.

Also can't see what lugs he used and the design of the wheel lug seats. User error does not look unlikely here.

I'm still not convinced. All that speculation doesn't change the fact that, without hubrings, more shear force gets applied to the studs which aren't intended to take 100% of the forces in the vertical direction. Why don't OEMs use larger bore wheels? It'd be more universal and, hence, cost effective. Because a hub matched wheel distributes more load to the hub. That's why OEMs bother to match them and Tirerack ships their wheels with hub rings.

This is a debate of what's likely/unlikely with physics as the rationale. Maybe 85% of people without hubrings won't run into problems. Among the remainder, maybe 14.5% will undergo undetectably faster wear than people with hubrings and 0.5% will have instant catastrophic failure. But among people with hubrings, maybe 99% will not see those problems. Yes, these are hypothetical values but illustrate the idea of odds. It's not 100% you will or you won't. In analog, a little over 1 million Americans have been diagnosed with HIV. That's not even 1% but a fraction of 1% of the American population. You'll likely never catch HIV if you never wear a condom your whole life. But the tiny odds are enough for people wrap it up. Why choose to increase the odds when lives (or cars) are at stake?

You're not convinced? You mean I'm not convinced. You're the one speculating and have the burden of proof by offering a hypothesis that those pics are the result of operating w/o a hub ring. So it's your burden to prove your argument, not mine. I'd like you to try to explain how shearing forces from the road managed to only snap 3 of the 5 studs off and left two others perfectly intact. You also forget these wheels are supposed to be attached to working independent suspensions.

That said, I don't see how we really disagree tbh. I'm in the recommended but not 'needed' camp. If you want to put 35lb crap wheels that cost $10 to make from China, then good luck, maybe hubrings w/ reduce the rate of stress fracturing so you get an extra 3 months out of that garbage. I bet I'd ROLFMAO after doing a road force variance test on those wheels off that SC430, assuming they are even actually round. Hubrings also sure as hell won't prevent idiots from overtightening the wrong type of lugnuts w/ a 1/2" breaker bar on the wrong type of wheel. Nor will they stop morons cutting their springs w/ a torch thus altering the spring temper so their car rides like a 50's pickup truck.

Like I said, do what makes you comfortable. Maybe some people like racing w/o a condom, I don't know. I'm not going to ask. If you don't know what you are doing, then go for it. I can also tell you a bunch of stuff manufacturers do that I don't. Using 40lb batteries, carrying dead weight spares, TPMS, heavy wheels, piping in crap sound inductors, simulating engine noise via Bose, nerfing throttle response for CAFE, installing useless back seats, etc, etc.

So you talk about what's 'likely' to happen. I don't see that you've demonstrated operating properly w/o hubrings makes it 'likely' all your lugs will shear off.