In the gap between posts I've raced in the 24Hrs of LeMons and acquired a son, among other things. For some reason I'm back, so here's my latest racing infatuation: cheap wheels.
I'm always on the look out for cheap wheels for my race car. I've got a pile of craigslist searches and keep an eye out on the local E30 forum for good deals. Well, I finally found a "good deal" and picked up a set of Team Dynamics Pro Race 2 wheels meant for Acura fitment, with Toyo RA1's on them, for $250. This is less than the $450 it would cost me for a set of new wheels, and as a bonus they came with some tires that I could race on if I could get them to fit.
They're not quite designed to work on an E30. The offset is odd, but I can work around that with spacers that I already have. The center bore is 56.1mm, exactly 1mm smaller than will fit on the E30.
Enter the milling machine:
I slapped them on the mill at work. A lathe is a better idea for cutting circles, but I don't have access to a lathe big enough to fit an entire wheel, let alone a wheel with the tire still mounted. So I bolted the wheels to the mill's table one at a time, found the center of the hole, then told the CNC computer to cut a circle 1mm bigger.
They turned out ok:
After wiping off the cob webs, I gave the car its semi-annual washing and got it fired up after 3 months of sitting. It fired right up, and I drove on the new wheels at ThunderHill on Friday. While I wasn't setting lap records, I got the entire day's worth of driving out of the tires, and they're not corded yet.
While this kind of wheel modding isn't for everyone, I'm pretty smug that it worked out.
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