Thread: Purchasing Wheels real soon. Opions needed.

I agree with both of you guys, especially when you say "cheap wheels do not equal shitty quality" That is why I said I am careful when purchasing "knock-off" wheels. That does no mean I classify all "knock-off" wheels as POS's. I don't have the mentality of "well they are cheap so they'll probably break". I consider spending money on something that has a good reputation (not just famous because everyone has them) and is known for great quality. Sure, there are off-brand wheels that can take a serious beating, but whether you have $500 wheels or $2500 wheels, there is always the possibility of the wheel catastrophically failing on you.
However, when you live in a area where most people can only afford cheaper wheels, you tend to see more bad things happen to the wheels (I would say this is mixed data because the some of the people I know don't beat on their cars while some of them beat on their cars at the canyon or track very frequently and rarely consider checking their wheels.)

I'm just glad 949 wheels aren't made in China.

could be Mexico lol j/k.

I think he's refering to me... but I didn't mention that the center caps wouldn't fit... that was Gumby. I agree though that I don't see why the caps couldn't be made to fit pretty easily. It wouldn't take much to grind down the end of the front axles if there was a clearance problem. That's the only reason I could think of why the caps wouldn't fit. Maybe Gumby can provide some owner's knowledge?

I mentioned that they're from the Miata community... I think that's why 949 doesn't really care to adjust the design to fix issues related to other cars. They have more than enough demand as it is. While these are used on street cars all the time, they were designed as a track wheels and caps aren't used on track. Track wheels ideally need to be light, strong, and cheap. Not something that's easily found, so these are pretty special. Oh, and the reason for the double air valves is so you can fill them with nitrogen and purge them at the same time for a complete fill.

Like ben said the fronts don't fit because of the axel being to long. The rears don't fit because the dust cap is so big it fills up the entire center bore. I got some p10 rear dust caps to try out as they are a bit smaller up top which will allow the cap to fit. I was told they won't fit so I have not had time to even try it out to see for myself. The 949 wheels look great and are really light, those two things outweight the silly center cap issue for me.

Happy wheel hunting!

exactly why. i always tape glass headlights out of courtesy to others on track. the hundreds of rocks thrown up by r compounds will destroy them fast and chunks can break off. i would be mad if a chunk of glass sliced an expensive track tire, or worse caused a blowout. Ps thats not my car though.. guy used to live with me and I helped install the suspension and such and we went to the track together.

Shawn B, I'm probably above your age bracket and above your tax bracket since the fact you even make a statement like that is pretty immature. I have spent 10s of thousands on building sentras but the fact is even racing se-r cup, pte or whatever, you don't win anything so its not an investment really... for the sizes that fit on a sentra you can get ultra-light strong wheels that will last a few track days at least and on the street for life for only a couple hundred. For a sports car that runs 18x11+ wheels or something then I would go with a CCW, work, or BBS. The beauty of a sentra is you can track them and have fun and at the end of the day if you wreck it just go buy another one for <$1000 and swap your parts over. That saves me more money for houses and investments.. something the stupid people in my age and tax bracket like to blow our money on.

LOL

If only you had a clue what you were talking about.

Clearly there are two schools of thought on this matter.
Some people like top quality stuff and treat their cars as such, some people like to save money and beat the crap out of their toys.

I understand both points of view and own cars that meet both needs.
I wouldn't get all up in anyone's face about their preference but instead, state my opinion on the matter in the context with which I am most familiar.

But to answer the OP's question, you should just get Kosei K1s. Just as wide as you can fit.

There are maybe three schools of thought, and we're only talking about two of them here.

1) The total-and-complete-cheap-bastard school of thought. Short-minded and naïve.
2) The budget and quality minded.
3) The total perfectionist, rich-boy, because racecar, ultimate performance nut-job.

None of us are even touching on number three here.

LOL I appear to be some varying combination of the three.