RPF1 owners..hubcentric rings?
 

I got a set of 17x7 +42 RPF1's from Tire Rack a while back, and they didn't come with hub-centric rings. I installed them slowly and hand tightened and torqued them, and ran a couple autox events with them and drove a couple hundred miles and everything felt fine.

On Tire Rack when looking at Enkei 17x8 PF01's and 17x8 RPF1's the product information says that hub-centric rings are included, and with 17x7 RPF1's they are not. Does that mean it's not necessary with my 17x7 RPF1's? Can't seem to find the hub-bore measurement for the 17x7's.

Hub bore is 56.1mm and wheel bore for RPF1 is 73mm

They're not needed at all. The tapered seat lugs line everything up as long as you torque them correctly (which it sounds like you are).

Looking into hubcentric rings with the RFP1s also though I really should have looked into this at the start of the year instead of now. Mechanic (Sprongl's) recommended that we use hubcentric rings especially if you're tracking the car given that all the load is being put on the bolts.

Now given that we've put on over 400km at the track on a single day twice, we haven't seen any issues but thinking it would be good idea nevertheless to have them for next year.

Did that mechanic try to sell you plastic rings? They'll be a melted pile of goo after a few hot laps.

Centering rings only help to center the wheel while torquing the lugs. Once the lugs are torqued down it's always the lugs supporting the weight of the vehicle.

I had a conversation about this with Scott from Can-Alignment because the tire shop gave me a hard time about not having centering rings and he just laughed, then said the same thing about them being 100% not needed.

No, Frank Sprongl would never recommend plastic rings :) He did mention that the additional support by the hub would be an added benefit so the entire load is not placed entirely on the bolts.

Im quite sure the hubcentric ring and hub does not carry any significant amouint of the load.

Youre fine. Just call tire rack and they will send you some free of charge I bet.

True I always thought that the clamping force is what keeps things in place thus the load isn't really on the studs themselves. If the load was in fact on the studs then the bolts aren't torqued on currently.

I have a set of Enkei RPF-1 and are installed without the hub-centric ring. No problem experienced.

I have a set of Kosei K1-TS, and hub-centric rings were installed to cure wheel vibration.

My own experience: hub-centric rings don't hurt, as long as you don't get the plastic ones. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it is not needed.

If rings fixed a vibration issue you're using the wrong kind of lug nuts for the wheel, or torquing them down incorrectly.

1. This is a 2014 thread.

2. I ordered RPF1s + Falkens from Tirerack last fall in the 17x7 +42 size. It said that the rings would be included. When they came, there were no ring in the box, however, when putting them on, to my surprise, they fit perfectly with the hub bore. I think that maybe since these are so popular, Enkei has started making some of the best selling sizes with the 56.1mm bore.

For what it's worth, I've never had hubcentric rings on any car I've ever owned. If my wheels were vibrating, it was either because of poor balancing (not lining up the yellow dot with the valve stem, not aligning wheel weights properly) or because of mud / ice stuck on the wheel, or back cords in the tire. This is just my experience, but whenever someone asks me about hubcentric rings, I advocate that they're not necessary. Helpful sure, necessary no.

tire rack also has a habit of putting them on and securing them to the wheels before they send them out. That is how my sparco's arrived.

I'll look again when I put them on this spring, but I'm fairly certain that it was a built-in feature, otherwise I wouldn't have been so flabbergasted.