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Hubcentric wheels on Ultralite


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Hello All,

 

I plan to purchase a new set of Team Dynamics wheels for my Ultralite. does anyone have advice for me regarding going with hub centric vs lug centric?

 

The bolt pattern is 5x100. I'm a bit confused about which bits are Subaru and which are Wilwood. I think the rear hubs are from a wrx and the fronts are wilwood -- perhaps someone can help me with that. The wheels currently on the car are J-line, with a 73 mm bore. There are centering rings on the rear but they are 56 mm diameter so the wheels are effectively lug centric. there are no centering rings on the front. I don't have an exact measurement for the front hub, but it is less than 70 mm.

 

I haven't had any issues with the current set up, but it seems like having centering rings would be nice, and would take some stress off the studs.

 

Any advice?

front.jpg

rear.jpg

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You are correct the rear are from the Subie and the front is all Wilwood. I would just measure the rear centric ring on the hub and your wheels and you can order them off the net. The front is going to be more difficult because the Wilwood hub is tapered. You will most likely need to find a local machine shop make them for you.

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Thanks Loren,

 

So do most Ultralites out there have lug centric wheels in front? Practically, has this been an issue for anyone? What do you do on a fresh build?

 

Hub centric does sound like a good idea, but i wonder if it's worth the trouble of finding a machine shop to make the centric rings. the lug centric set up i have now has not caused any problems for me. No vibration, no abnormal wear, etc. I just have to take a little more care when torquing the lugs down. Maybe it's not a huge issue on such a lightweight car?

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It really hasn't been a issue that I'm aware of. It is possible to be slightly off , but I never experienced vibration or abnormal wear. I was looking at hub centric set up on my car, but construction has been beyond slow.

 

okay thanks.

i'll ask td and wilwood about it too before i order any wheels.

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One problem 7evin ran into with the Team Dynamics wheels was he ordered hub size to small and he had to have them machined bigger to clear the front spindle. So you might want to measure the spindle diameter next to the rotor to make sure it will sit flush to the rotor hat.

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jim_rankin on the forum has Team Dynamics wheels on his Ultralite as well so you may want to get in touch with him as well. I do know that he had to wait something like 6 months to get them despite originally being told 6 weeks

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the wheels on my car now came with centering rings which did not work. i tried to machine out the hub on the wheel but still got a little wobble. i had the shame shop machine me rings for my wheels and its perfect. only charged me about $60 for a set of 4.

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  • 2 months later...

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!

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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.

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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

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