What exactly does hubcentric rings REALLY do?
I actually took mine off the front of my BBS's because I noticed that the front wheels weren't sitting exactly flat with the hub. I found out that the center hubcentric rings were in the way of the center bore. I decided to take off the rings and the wheels fit better.
I don't notice anything different with them off. Am I suppose to? Is it really bad to not have them on? or does it depend on the mounting type of the car?
I always thought that they were used for balancing rotation or something. Or is it just for mounting purposes?
Just wondering how this small rings will make a difference.
Thanks for any input!

My rears are still installed.

 

I think !! These are adapter rings to accomodate aftermarket wheels to specific vehicle applications. Without the rings, the lugs are holding and supporting the wheels to the vehicle, and with the adaptors the hub is supporting the wheels to the vehicle. Is is ideal that the hub supports the wheel mounting for strength and centering.

 

I think their purpose is to center the wheels and not to support the weight if you will. Without the rings, you'd have to depend on the lug nuts to center the wheels.

 

With the rings, it is nice to be able to loosen the lugnuts with the car's weight on the wheel without the wheel moving and continuing to settle on the lugnuts. The ring supports the wheel as would the hub to a stock wheel.

 

The hubs are what supports the car on the wheels. What Jedraz said is exactly correct. You DO NOT want the studs supporting the weight of the car!!

Most wheel MFG make wheels in a general size, bolt pattern, offset, and centerbore to reduce costs and rely on centerbore rings to make them huncentric to specific vehicle applications.

I hope someone else can verify, but I think the centerbore on the S2000 is 64.1mm...??

Steve, I'm not sure what your centerbore ring sizes are or for that matter what the centerbore is on your BBS RG-R's, but you may want to get it checked out just to make sure. Your BBS RG-R wheels are too rare and precious to mess around with!

 

The front and rear have different centerbore sizes, front larger than rear. I'll get the sizes listed this afternoon unless someone else can post this.

 

I don't know that it actually supports it... after all a lot of the rings are plastic.

 

True True good point, the centerbore rings/hubs do not support the whole weight, since the weight is distributed on the studs too once the wheels are centered. But you still want to make sure that the rings fit so the wheels will center correctly.

 

The lug nuts locate and support the wheel. The hub itself (being rusty cast iron) is not exactly spindle-centric as a locating point.

I have always believed that hub-centric schemes merely made it easier to locate the loose wheel but provide no support in motion. They locate the wheel lug holes in basic center on the hub lug.

They maybe were important prior to the advent of tapered lugs. But to be an effective at all, the hub would have to be machined and matched. It would always rust-weld if the tolerances were really tight enough to be effective in locating the wheel on center.

This logic was recently contradicted in Grassroots Motorsports but I still believe I'm correct.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jschmidt
[B]The lug nuts locate and support the wheel. The hub itself (being rusty cast iron) is not exactly spindle-centric as a locating point.