I picked up a cheap set of BMW E30 to use a track day wheels. The wheel bore is 1mm larger than my Civic's. I've noticed at certain speeds the car vibrates as if the tires weren't balanced. Could this cause long term problems with the wheel bearings?

 

if you have the right lug nuts (so they seat properly on the wheel) you wont have a problem.

Only a few of my race wheels are hub-centric, never had a problem.

 

Uh. Is the wheel bent? Put on improperly? I could see long term imbalance causing problems like that. Just the bore alone won't do it, there is some other issue.

 

The BMW "bottlecap" wheels will be fine if you are using the right lugnuts (conical). I had a set for a while, and from what I have seen, they are hard to find and keep in perfect balance (kinda like Honda's HX wheels). The extra offset (+30) they have might make slight imbalance more noticeable, too.

 

Not necessarily. I've known some people who have used wheels with larger center bores and have never been able to fully eliminate vibrations, even with the proper lug nuts, and endless rebalancing, and doing everything the "right way" (tightening them before the weight of the car is fully on them, etc). I've known others who have done the same thing and haven't had problems at all. I don't know why this is, but it is.

Some of the people who had vibration problems with larger center bores were able to get hubcentric rings, and this fixed the problems. But you can only do that when there's a sufficient difference in center bores. (I don't know what the minimum difference would be to get hubcentric rings, but I would imagine it would be around 5-10 mm.)

Whatever the cause of the vibrations, I would be hesitant to run it on the track until you figure it out. Be aware of your lug tightening procedure, and you might want to have the wheels re-balanced by someone who takes a lot of care in doing so. You also might experiment with moving the wheels around on your car to see if you can isolate it to one or two specific wheels. (If you can, you might get away with using the offending wheel(s) only on the rear, but you'd be better off figuring out the cause and fixing it.) If you still can't isolate the cause, though, then you might be better off with a different set of wheels other than the BMW bottlecaps.

HTH

 

Really. That is odd, and doesn't make sense to me. The system is very simple. Maybe fubar'd lugnut seats, causing the "correct" lugnut tightening to force the wheel slightly off-center?

 

Nope. It only seems to happen with wheels whose center bore is larger.

 

i ran wheels with a bigger center boar and never had a problem.. even at 140 mph... good luck

 

try using hub rings to correct this problem ... they are cheap

 

Hubcentric rings, of plastic or metal (metal is better for the heat of track use), can indeed correct a vibration problem for wheels whose center bore is larger than the hub. However, the difference between the center bores has to be large enough to manufacture a sturdy hubcentric ring. With the 1 mm difference between a 57 mm center bore on the BMW wheels and the 56 mm for the Civic hub, the hubcentric ring would have to be 0.5 mm thick, which is too thin for any hubcentric ring I've ever seen.

 

http://www.motorsport-tech.com/hub_rings.html

they make them $100

 

lots of us around here have ran bottlecap wheels , and no problems. i wouldnt blame it on the wheels, it might be your studs...seriously.

i ran a set of cheap extended studs while back, and tightening them down with an impact made them a tiny bit off after i tightened the first lug, and the wheel wouldnt be perfect. the next lug would slightly , slightly bend the second , third, and 4th studs. changed to ARP studs, and snuged the lugs down by hand from then on ,and no problems.

we have bottle caps on a track car right now that are bend, dented, etc, and with a balancing, they are fine.

 

I realize they say they can make any thickness. But I gotta believe that even if they can make rings 0.5 mm thick, they would be so easy to bend that they would be totally impractical. But I'm just guessing and maybe I'm wrong...

 

somebody needs to call them to find out.(909) 514-0091

 

Thanks for all of the replies. For the record they are the mesh E30 wheels not the bottle caps. Though I don't know if that really makes a difference.

I tightened the lugs with a regular cordless drill and then lowered the car and torqued them down to 80 lbs.

I did get the tires mounted and balanced at one of the smaller local shops. I could take them somewhere else to be double checked, but I only payed $40 for the wheels. I think it might be best to just ditch the wheels and use another set.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

 

i'd tighten them slowly by hand....but you might just need a new set of studs. stockers, etc can easily be slightly bent. being about an inch from the mating surface between the wheel/brake rotor, the torque'd lug on a bit of bent stud would slightly offset the wheel from center.

toss on another set of known-good wheels from a buddy, and see if its the car, not the wheels. i'd bet its not the wheels if they balance out well. it happened to me with a set of bottlecaps. new studs (not even a re-balance) and they were perfect.

i've also got a set of terrible condition meshies for track duty, and they are fine too! haha.

 

im thinking about getting the same wheels you have, the e30 wheels bbs type wheels, have you had any problems since january? or did u get that vibration problem sorted out?

 

I just decided to sell them rather than worry about it. I have other wheels that are either OEM or have hub-centric rings to use.

 

do you think running spacers would do anything?

 

pm sent.