Well if i was going on a track i would all day be going with cast iron and not forged. Forged seems to be having a kot of issues on this board for cracking wheels.

 

Not true, a lot of these issues you are noticing are with 3 piece wheels and also small/thin spokes.

Run a monoblock forged rim with thick spokes and you won't have to worry about it as much.


Granted, anything will crack or bend if you hit a big enough pot hole…..

 

Agh i forgot about monoblock they have great results. Correct anything can bend or crack when hitting potholes.

 

this was the last time i saw a cast iron wheel on a track..

 

Lol well said. Do yourself a favor and get a nice forged monoblock and never worry about wheels again.

 

Thats a good one heres another one HRE wheels has been banned at one of the top track events becaude there wheels keep cracking. So beat that one lol its on this board all about it.

 

^yup. kinesis wheels cracked as well.. i remember all of those stories. this is why when you purchase a set of wheels like ours, you dont mess with them.. you NEVER EVER under any circumstances have them powdercoated...

always paint.. if youve got a 3 piece wheel, give it to the company that made them... these mom and pop shops that deal with wheels will not take the time to properly repaint, and more importantly reassemble the wheel.

when you mount wheels on our cars, torque them down properly (96lbs for 19's), drive around for a day, then retorque them again. check tire pressures weekly.
and you'll have nothing to fear.


as far as potholes.. i have never seen a stronger wheel than factory gt3 wheels.
they are my DD wheels, and ive driven to baltimore, boston, and philly on a weekly basis throughout 2013, and gotten real intimate with some serious potholes and have never had an issue.. and im talking about the large bang ones that make your face cringe.. theres nothing like OEM. btw, gt3 wheels are cast. turbo wheels are forged.

with factory wheels, you'll notice you barely need more than a few grams to balance them. my 3 piece wheels (winter wheels now) required a 2.25 ounces to get them balanced, and theyre "perfectly" round.





btw, the hre being banned story happened from a viper club.. (remember, those pos's have hubs from the dodge ram (6 bolts).. the pic of the wheel i just posted had been powdercoated, and i would bet anything thats what caused the failure.

 

Omg omg those pics make me sick it just broke off like that?

 

yup. you know how something like that happens ? easy.
you go to carlos's used tires/alloy wheel repair shop. he disassembles the wheels.. powdercoats them at 400 degrees (who cares if its a little too hot and will change the property of the metal)
then he puts the wheels back together, tightens the F-uck out of the bolts (40 bolt wheels like hre/iforged/adv's require between 18-24lb of torque, NO MORE ). you get a wheel thats every so slightly warped, but you wont be able to tell because theres a couple of ounces of weights to counter act it..

we then happily pay him the $50/wheel he charged to refinish the wheel and put them on cars that have a static weight of 60+% of weight in the rear. and with every revolution, an area of that wheel gets over a ton of stress on it, over and over and over again...

and then one day.. kaboom.

 

a quality wheel , weather it be a 1 piece, or 3 piece will never brake so long as it has NEVER been tampered with.

but there are super rare times when **** happens... but i'de bet we wont see a story like HIX's for another 5 years.

the companies we've come to trust x ray every single wheel before it leaves their shops.

 

If that Champion wheel was a true forging, I can't imagine it breaking like that. A casting wheel, yes. It looks like a random crack, possibly from some porosity or inclusion in the manufacturing process. I highly doubt a forging would or could crack like that across the grain.

Many cast wheels have manufacturing processes named to confuse the consumer. I've heard "rotary forged" which is a casting process, not even close to forging. The only wheels I know of that were truly forged were Fuchs.

The wheel can be repaired successfully, but it's a long and tedious process. It can be welded, then annealed, artificially aged and finally heat treated (normalized). If the wheel had pent up stresses to begin with, when relaxed it will distort and not be true. If this is the case, the wheel is scrap.

Most wheels, quality wise are nothing like you would expect. The cheapest to the most expensive are very similar in construction. Marketing fluff is the major difference. A forged wheel is extremely expensive to manufacture today and there is little market for true quality when a cheap Chinese casting with a slick brochure will bring in a boatload of profit.

 

or, if youre like me, and are OCD with everything,
you handle it like a baws and D.I.Y. !
19x8.5 front. 19x11 rear (had to replace the inner barrels with a 1" narrower barrel to PROPERLY fit a narrower 295 snow tire).
gloss black center, gunmetal metallic lip with clearcoat & 17mm chrome bolts). had these wheels for 6+ years now.

 

Thms up!

 

^

This man speaketh the truth.


Nick, remember, HIX's wheel is a 1 piece. i cant see how any process of repairing the crack would guarantee 100.00% accuracy that the wheel wouldnt then be warped at the hub (even if it may be a couple of mills).
having a 5x130 pattern doesnt help...
OT: i wonder why porsche uses such a high gap , bmw is 5x120, audi and benz and lambo are 5x112, and i think ferrari is 5x110?

 

I've always known forged as more ductile(willing to bend without fracture) than cast, and is also stronger per given weight/lighter per given strength, all else being equal...