Ricer rims? Options

[Brad Smith]

A newbie question:

Are there adapters to put "ricer" rims on the 914? There are literally HUNDREDS of sizes and styles available, but alas, in 4x108 bolt pattern. I realize it would probably be a spacer arrangement with the spacers bolted to the existing hole location and studs or lugs in the spacers... the question is, are those available? I also realize it would probably only work on a car with flares... ok, no big deal. If they aren't available, I can get a friend to make me some, (he has a lathe, mill, etc at home) but wanted to look for commercial products first.

Brad

[Brad Smith]

properly designed and made adapters are fine when going from 4x130 to 4x100 BC...the main problem you'll run into is that the "ricer" rims won't have enough offset to fit under the totally stock fenders..at least in the rear...you can easily fit 7" wide rims up front and the 1" adapter will be just about perfect with a 40mm offset rim....for the rear, 35mm offset is ideal for a 7" wide rim

Thanks, that is EXTREMELY helpful. BTW 38 or 40 mm offset is easy to find. 35 not so easy. BUT... the easy answer is to buy 40 mm offset rims for all 4, and make adapters that are 5mm thicker for the rear. Or did I misunderstand? In other words, the rears need to be 5mm further OUT than the fronts? (5mm less offset? You said more, but the numbers you posted said less!)

i did the redrilled hubs/flanges last year, I didn't feel comfortable with the front hubs due to how I had to remove material from the inside of the rotor hub, I also had to turn down the hubcentric ring (both the height and the dia.)

hmmmm.... I'd rather have spacers that are hubcentric for the Porsche hubs on one side and for the ricer rims on the other.

another issue with redrilling the fronts, is that when the rotor wears out, you have to get another set of rotors and redrill them.

Actually THIS was the issue that I was thinking about. Machine work every time you want to change rotors? No thanks!
I realize folks are saying "but these can come off," but it's no more likely than a properly torqued wheel coming off. Perhaps some locktite for "insurance" would be in order.

for the rear flanges, you actually end up with more material for the studs since the flange is thicker as in tapers towards the middle...so it should be stronger than the stock pattern...however, the smaller BC means that you need to re-drill the rotor and this is what I didn't like about this modification...the large hole in the middle of the rotor is approx. 3.75", the new bolt pattern is 3.93", what happens is that the thru holes for the studs breaks into the 3.75" hole in the middle of the rotor....more than likely it's okay, but I didn't want to deal with it.............so I sold my "ricer" rims and threw the redrilled hubs and flanges in the dumpster

The redrilled hubs just sounds like a bad idea to me for various reasons... but I can see where it has an advantage too.

now with the new billet front hubs, a 4x100 BC is no problem on the fronts...except you'd still want to run spacers to move the wheel outboard some due to the offsets options

Yeah, they $ound really nice. I $uspect that $ome of u$ may want another option. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

hope all this rambling makes some sense, LOL

4 to 4 adapters = good
4 to 5 adapters = bad
5 to 5 adapters = good

That was my take on it too... UNLESS it is the same bolt circle- then 4 to 5 would be ok. Of course you are then right back to expensive wheels with very limited choices to fit Porsche's "oddball" bolt pattern.

Even if the adapters were $100 each, you would save that much per wheel due to "economies of scale." The manufacturers sell a LOT of the ones for common bolt patterns, so they make more, and it keeps the costs lower.

All this is just my opinion though.

Brad