Tuning a Mazda 2

[walterclark]

Walter, if Hammer is not interested in the basketweaves, I would be..

Sam is interested, but I will let you know what he decides and youll have first dibs on what is left.

[sdwarf36]

Just like you said. VW's use the hub to center, the rest of the planet uses the lugs. You just have to watch out going the other direction-spacers are sometimes needed to get various rims to the right hub size for the VW's-but lug centric is staight forward.

[Chief Geek]

the rest of the planet uses the lugs

I thought all cars use the center boss for concentricity and all the lugs did was create enough friction between the rim and hub to transfer torque and keep the wheel mated. It seems like there would be a terrible risk of vibration using the lugs only, particularly when the hub and lugs aren't brand new anymore.

Actually, I was waiting for Mopar and Sdwarf to chime in about the evils of lug-only alignment, or at least with a funny story.

Paul

[KevinGale]

You would have to look pretty hard to find a hub on my wide 5 wheels. Nothing basically wrong with lug centric if the lug nuts have a cone design that centers.

One problem people often have that gives them a bad name is that the person balancing uses the center hole on wheel to mount the wheel on the balancer. For an aftermarket lug centric wheel the center hole may not truly be in the center and should not be used to balance the wheel. The other objection is the hub centric design is stronger. You are less likely to bend wheel studs if you hit something hard with the wheel. Not sure how big a deal that is in practice. Seems to me that if you are hitting things that hard all bets are off but who knows.

[Mopar 151w2]

Well, I've done the bent studs thing, back when I ran Ford LTD spindles 'n hubs. But- it was a hard hit, broke the steering rack and trashed the control arms. My current ones pilot correctly, but it's kind of irrelevant, because the hubs are The World's Most Indestructable Racing Part. I figure that Ford, back in 1960 or so, asked some old bald guy named Curly to draw up 3/4 ton running gear for a Galaxie (Kevin's running gear is based on late 40's 3/4 ton Fords) - keep the tooling simple, spec out the good steel and heat treat, hasta use production hardware. (Stubby says he sends boxes of these down there, and the part # shows OK in the file, F-350 you think?) Curly called his buddy Lucky and got the print for a Linclon limo wheel center, and then made allowance for the long wheel studs when he drew up the machined hubcaps.
The thing I have noticed is that correctly configured pilots make the wheels very easy to change, particularly if they are awkward, and pretty much stupid-proof as far as centering, squareness, etc. Which is why the Nascar crewperson can change one in 9 seconds, while the chump kid at Pile O' Tires wreaks havoc on a Town 'n Country when he tries it. Chumplee otta remember, too, that those beastly old truck studs will take 200 ft.lb., while the Chinee OENutz round off at 55 or so.....

lurks, though, in a sloppiliy,cheaply designed system - like on the rear of our Freestar, Vanna! If you try, you can get them on cockeyed with all the nuts tight. Steel wheels rust to the short pilots on the hub (Half the people on this board have had to result to crude and dangerous means to get one of these off a car at least once), or the rust keeps the wheel from seating down tight. The Dad way to overcome this is to pay attention - push the wheel all the way on over the studs, and finger tightenthe nuts with the wheel seated all the way down. Lug bolts go easier if you start one , then square the wheel up and get a couple finger tight And don't put weight on the wheel until all the nuts are at least snug!