someone brought up the topic of centric hub rings to me and it caught my attention. i currently have 15x7 rpf1 and 35mm off set...

are they necessary? according to my understanding, theyre to help align the wheel to the hub perfectly thus not relying on the relying on the lug nuts to align..which is normally off due to free play when slapping the wheel on the hub


what size centric hubs for my car? 2001 integra ls coupe on 15x7 enkei rpf1 35mm

 

a good idea, but not entirely necessary. it does open up the possibility of misalignment and imbalance. but not always.

 

I always get them. There's a site you can go to and they can tell you what size to get (they sell them). If I remember what site I'll post back.

 

This isn't the site but I found these
http://www.justforwheels.com/index.j...cat=hubcentric

 

I can't tell any difference with and without. They can get loose and get in the way of easy mounting. I have hubcentric rings on oversize rotor/hub holes where they seem necessary.

 

well i have lugcentric aftermarket rims ... I had some vibrations after 40+mph after i got the hub rings i had no vibration.... when i got the rims I also bought new tires and had them balanced....

 

That's why I always get them with every new set of aftermarket rims.

 

My rotor hubcentrics are aluminum and stay snug. The rotors are for NSX and have a larger hub size. The wheel hubcentrics were more like nylon. Not sure that will help with the weight of the car. The dealer explained that the hubcentrics make it easier to put the lugs in as the wheel may be off center when the lugs start. Now I always torque, drive a short distance with a few minor road clunks and re-torque. Never get that vibration even on the track.

 

I will have to say yes, I lost one during a swap and could not figure out why the car was shaking. Swapped axles, front bearings and could not figure it out till I looked at the rims. I swapped on some stock gsr rims and problem gone. Swapped back on the other rims. Shaking. Found out one of the rings was under the tool box. Problem solved. Depends on the rims.

 

This a pretty ignorant statement.


EVERY single factory Honda and Acura wheel is hub centric. Almost every aftermarket wheel is lug centric but are designed to use hub centric rings.

Why? Because it is the correct way to install any wheel to ensure the it is centered correctly to reduce ride issues and wear and tear on the studs and lug nuts.

 

so if i by hub centric rings for my car would they fit any rim i buy or do i have to get it specifically for the rim?

 

Think about it for a second. Are all wheels made the same?

 

You should definitely get the hubcentric rings for aftermarket wheels. Obviously you don't need them with OEM wheels since they are designed to be an exact fit for the hubs on that car.

They plastic rings are really cheap, and the aluminum ones don't cost that much more. If you buy your wheels from a reputable place like the Tire Rack, they include free lugs and hubcentric rings with the purchase.

HOWEVER, if you buy your wheels from some of the fly by night places that sell to the "tuner" crowd, then they don't include anything. That includes the once adored "DRFlickner and JLB Motorsports," who sold Rotas to everybody. I'm not giving thumbs down to Rota wheels, only to the shops who don't include lugs and rings with wheel purchases.

Instead of giving you a free set of regular lug nuts and hub centric rings they would try to sell you an overpriced set of "tuner" lugs and charge you for the plastic rings.

 

can you buy them from like an auto shop like nappa or a rim /tire shop?

 

 

Well there's really two sides to this. As far as hub centric rings go, yes they are good to have for getting the wheel perfectly aligned to the hub when your installing it, but beyond that they are not necessary. After you bolt the wheel down and torque the lugs the wheel is not going to shift or move if you don't have hub centric rings. IIRC there is something near 30,000lbs or 32,000lbs of force holding the wheel on.

 

I know this is an old thread. But I found this on an internet search. And I believe this needs to be corrected in case any one else comes across this information.

Hub-Centric rings do a lot more than you are suggesting.

The lateral force applied by the lug nuts is irrelevant. The issue is shear force. And lug nuts are not designed to provide the entire amount of shear strength required.

When your rims are fitted properly, a large portion of the downward force is applied to the hub at 90 degrees from the tire's contact point on the road surface.

When you don't use hub-centric rings the weight of the vehicle, and the accompanying force applied when you hits bumps/etc., is distributed (sometimes unevenly) to the lugs only.

In reality, can the lugs withstand this force? I really don't know. Maybe. But I do know that they are not designed to. And I wouldn't climb a mountain with equipment that was not designed for climbing. It's not a minor inconvenience. It is a safety issue.

Your lugs will certainly twist and bend and experience greater temperature changes... and chances are, they will eventually become permanently warped. Worst case scenario, one or more lugs will snap off at 70mph on the freeway and you'll become a statistic. In my opinion, not using them should be illegal since you're also risking the safety of me and my family.

Considering what aftermarket rims cost, hub-centric rings are not that much greater of an investment. Keep yourself (and everyone else on the road) safe, and spend the extra few bucks.

 

You are wrong. The lugs do not resist any substantial portion of the shear force that results from vertical wheel loads, the vertical shear force is transferred from the wheel to the hub face by friction, which is why the wheel nuts are torqued to a particular value, to provide this static friction. For the vertical wheel loads to be supported by the hub the wheel would need to be an interference fit on the hub, which even OEM wheels are not.

Hub-centric rings are not a terrible idea, and make mounting wheels correctly easier, but don't pretend that they're essential. Rather than spending the money on hub centric rings, everyone would be better off if they put that money into a torque wrench and always correctly torqued their wheel nuts.

I've run without hub centric rings up to 220km/h on track and I'm not dead and nor are you or your family.

 

Fine. You're right. I'm wrong.

 

I run hub centric rings. They are made of plastic. They have never suffered any damage nor do they have any marks on them. If they had to support any load they would have been crushed long ago.

 

I've spent quite a bit of time researching this topic just for this very reason. I always try to keep an open mind about everything because nobody knows everything there is to know. Personally I have never ran any sort of hub centric rings on any aftermarket wheels I've had and as long as your tires are balanced properly and you hand snug the lug nuts before torquing they will all perfectly line up the wheel. Now as far as technical info is concerned an engineer at Honda stated that hub centric wheels are just to make mounting them easier. After everything is torqued to specification if serves no other purpose. You must remember that they design everything to make repairs quicker and easier also for the factory service technicians. Info that a wheel specialist provided was exactly the same but he also said that if you insist on running rings and do any sort of brake heat cycling then he recommended only using aluminum rings due to the plastic rings being susceptible to melting or distorting. Just some food for thought.

 

Yes. He is. You are. Mostly, anyway.

As mentioned already, hub centricity is used to line up the wheel. After that, the friction from correctly torquing the wheels to spec will keep things in place and will take the lateral load.

However...centric rings are a good idea since they WILL transfer some lateral load of the lugs are under torqued or come loose.

 

Ok out of my experience at working at ntb in texas, ppl that come in here with their wheels shaking after they got their rims is because the hubeccentric ring is missing and the wheel is resting on the lug nuts now and not on the middle part of the hub so yes they are needed BUT at the same time I (in my opinion) dnt think they are needed even tough they would help allot on a car wich its rim is suppose to sit on the hub sooo here is what wee doo to stop vibration here when there are noo hub eccentric rims and we still have to tighten the wheels down
1. Lift up vehicle
2. Remove lug nuts(not all the way, just very loose)
3. With a hand ratchet and socket for your lug nut tighten lugnuts UNTILL they JUST start to feel tight and thats it
4. Turn wheel 180 degrees lower car down enough were the wheel is barely touching the ground where the wheel wnt turn so u tighten the wheel down to torque specs OR if u have a lift just snug them down and double tap with gun to make them tight
5. Lower car all the way down
6. Grab a beer cuz it might be hot and u got 3 more to go
NOW by no means am i an expert on this subject and im only telling on experience and what has worked for me and the other technician i work with soo if u want to use my way then doo and if not well the knowledge is there for somebody else