We have been running our Rota RB's without bore spacers and haven't had any problems. That being said, I'm considering a set just to save time. Without the spacers I spend a fair amount of time making sure all 4 lug nuts are centered. It's not a big deal since they are conical seat lug nuts, but it would be nice to just know the wheel is centered and not worry about it.

My question is, has anyone run aluminum bore spacers? I've only had plastic ones on past vehicles, but aluminum sounds like it may hold up better.

Here's two I'm considering...




Thoughts?

 

centering rings.. yah, ive used both plastic and metal ones. either does fine for street use, but if you track/auto-x ur car (or do heavy canyon craving) best to use the metal ones as the brakes can heat up to the point the plastic ones melt.

but as you stated, most aftermarket wheels for j-cars are lugcentric meaning the tapered part of the lugs will center the wheel to the hub. the centering rings is not needed, nor should it be needed given the wheels and tires are true and properly balanced.

if u run ball type aftermarket wheels (like maybe on your Golf), you will want to run metal ones as those wheels are hubcentric by design and rely on the hub bore to center the wheel and even put some weight on them.

 

Thanks! The plastic ones I had on a different car never melted, but would eventually get brittle from the heat cycles and brake. They seemed to last a year or two.

Granted that car had large 6 piston Brembos and did a few parking lot auto-x events.

Think I will give the aluminum ones a try. The Fit brakes do get hot enough to experience quite a bit of fade here in the mountains even with ATE fluid.

 

no prob! but then again as you noted, there is really no need to run centering rings on lug-centric wheels so why not just go without them unless you're experiencing vibrations at 70mph+ due to lugs not centering the wheel properly when torqued..?

 

All Honda's are designed to be hub centric, very few after market wheels are the perfect size so you need the metal rings, they are supposed to be weight bearing together with the lugs. You'll get away without the rings but at higher speeds its almost 100% you'll have a minor shimmy from the wheel lugs not holding the rim as centered as it could be.. Worked at a tire shop years ago and Hondas were one of the worst for cracked rims at the lug bolts, and almost every one was a non hub centric wheel. YMMV. I've also seen way too many of the plastic ones melt or crush on autocross and road race tracks so I don't use them.

 

so there are 2 types of wheels in our discussion. hubcentric and lugcentric.

hubcentric which is the one as you noted, factory wheels using ball type lugs to rely on the car's hub to disperse weight and to center the wheel.

now most aftermarket wheels for hondas are lugcentric by design which do not use the hub of the car to support weight. lugcentric means it uses the lugs to hold the wheel in place and uses the tapered lugs.

centering rings on lugcentic wheels merely aids the install of the wheel onto the hub to get it as close to center as possible, but it is ultimately the lugs that center the wheel to the hub.

hope this make sense.

 

Good description!

My only desire for the rings is to make it fast to rotate/change wheels and tires. Never had a vibration. Granted, we've only had it to 105mph. Maybe the vibration would kick in higher, but that would take a calendar and a desert highway to explore.