your brakes should not melt them. bottom line. If your driving that hard, you'd need to upgrade your brakes because you'd be pretty close to outgrowing the stock system. I have not seen a set of hubcentric rings melt.

The rims are hubcentric. Do some research... The hat of the rim is designed to fit on hub WITH the plastic ring on it. They are not meant to be run without them.

 

I run le28's. As it turns out I am running without them. I believe you are talking about the hubcentric rings instead of the center caps. I had the plastic hubcentric rings in there and destroyed one on the track. Paid WAY too much to get another set of plastic and destroyed that one on the track. Street driving will not destroy the rings. I had a machinist friend of mine make up nice aluminum set and that was the ----. I got tired of putting them in so I mounted the rims without them and have not had any problems. Between my experience and the feedback I have gotten telling me that the rings are just to help in lining up the rims I think you are fine to track without them. The tapered lugs will center the rim on the hub.

 

I have Volk wheels and have absolutely melted the plastic hub centric rings that came with the wheels. This was from 2 track days - looked like a shrinky dink. Only the front melted.

 

Are you suggesting that the plastic rings help support the weight of the car or cornering/braking forces in any way? Clearly they are not needed if the wheel is on straight and tapered lugs torqued.

 

no, I'm not suggesting that they are supporting the weight, etc. in any way, I'm saying they are used to make a flush flat contact patch on the hub. I'd rather have a set made of aluminum like mentioned above and have them, then not and have any neg. space there. JMO, and to be honest, I hadn't heard of them melting. I'll ask Mackin if there are any race type that are either made of a more heat resistant plastic, or if they do make them from some type of metal...

 

The "hubcentric" rings on the Volk wheels are there to: 1) save Volk some money by making one size to fit many applications and 2) assist in centering the wheel when mounting same.

If one is careful when mounting the wheel, it will center itself by slowly tightening the lug nuts. I like to start one and snug it up, then do the same for the rest of the nuts. While I am tightening the first and second lug nuts, I am also slightly moving the wheel to insure it is centered on the lug bolts. When the wheels are mounted in this fashion, I see that the hubcentric rings serve no useful purpose. They are simply an aid to mounting the wheels.

 

The hubcentric rings are used to line up the wheel centerbore when mounting the wheels. The rings support no weight when the lug nuts are torqued. The car is supported by the friction between the wheel hub mounting surface and the hub.

 

FYI, just about every serious track junkie on the board that uses these dumb things has melted them. Plastic is just a way for Volk to save a few pennies per wheel and has no business being used in that application for the track.

 

A BIG word of caution to anyone who uses them, plastic or Al.

They have a tendancy to get stuck inside the wheel or on the hub. If a wheel with one stuck inside it is mounted to a hub with one stuck on it the wheel will not mount flush. Instead there will be a very small gap between the wheel and hub.

If you are lucky the wheel will wobble when you first start out after mounting it and you will quickly realize there is something very wrong.

If you are unlucky the wheel wont wobble and at some point later the lug nuts will work themselves loose with the loss of the wheel while moving a very likely outcome.

Ask me how i know.

 

Yeah, I've been having lugnut loosening issues on my stock wheels which I suspect are related to that damn "hubcentric" alignment process.