17 inch wheel choices

[Agilt]

Eventually I'll be going with 17's and 35's once the suspension is done on the bronco. One of the reasons is that since my bronco sees a lot of street/highway time as well as some possible towing the lower sidewalls will flex less and give better handling.

So I'll be looking for some 17x8's. It does make me sad to give up the forged stockers, as they always look great too. But I'm not going to be really beating on the truck that much so I think I'll be ok with good quality cast wheels if I end up with them. Style-wise I'll be looking for something a bit subdued (no real fancy spokes or wild rings or anything) but not necessarily exactly the same as stock.

I've always liked how the robby gordon wheels looked in machine finish



Anyone else got any options to throw around?

[BajaBronco13]

By far my favorite wheel if you are going to go beadlock:

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/a ... wheels.jpg

[BDKW1]

By far my favorite wheel if you are going to go beadlock:

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/a ... wheels.jpg

By far the heaviest most poorly engineered Chinese wheel out there.

[philofab]

I would look into KMC Enduros, Methods, BTR, or Raceline.

[tcm glx]

By far my favorite wheel if you are going to go beadlock:

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/a ... wheels.jpg

By far the heaviest most poorly engineered Chinese wheel out there.

Poorly engineered? Care to elaborate? Also, heaviest? How does it compare to a KMC, or Robby beadlock?

[Agilt]

Negative on the real beadlocks

The BTR's are a possibility.

[tcm glx]

I absolutely LOVE the BTW! Great looking wheel.

[BajaBronco13]

By far my favorite wheel if you are going to go beadlock:

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/a ... wheels.jpg

By far the heaviest most poorly engineered Chinese wheel out there.

I thought Robby Gordon's had that title, lol.

[philofab]

Negative on the real beadlocks

All those wheels are available in a non beadlock version.

[Prerunbronc]

I have the Gordons on my sandcar and btrs on my Manx I really like the gordons the btr's are ok for the money.
I am going with the kmc's on my bronco

[BDKW1]

Poorly engineered? Care to elaborate? Also, heaviest? How does it compare to a KMC, or Robby beadlock?

They have 1 casting for all the wheels from big 5 to 5 X 4.5. This means theres a LOT of extra material in the center section that they don't bother to machine off on the smaller patterns where it isn't needed. The most damaged part is the wheel lip and they aren't any stronger there than any other cast wheel. There are a couple of company's making forged wheels out there, now they are stronger, but the cost is over twice as much.

I thought Robby Gordon's had that title, lol.

A close second. But hey, they have somebody famouses name on them also so they must be good right?

BTR's are really heavy also. A lot of material in the wrong places on those.

[tcm glx]

Wow, didn't know that. Seems strange they are that weak and soany folks still choose to run them.

What about kmcs?

[BDKW1]

They run them becuase they are throw away wheels. Get a flat a ding one and you don't feel to bad about leaving a 150$ wheel on the course to save some time. Now if you were running 450$ forged wheels, you might feel a little differently........ APP's were 7 pounds lighter than Walkers.........

[Smart Alex]

A cast wheel is not weak.. Not calling anyone out just my 2 cents. I would love to see physical stress test's on cast vs. forged... All I can vouch for is cast wheels on tt's seem to be class standard with little to no issues... Can anybody pull up the lbs. of the different make of wheels in a single (say big tt 6 or 5 on 5.5) bolt pattern to keep a median?

Mike

[PaulW]

It sure would be enlightning to have real data. If you got data from the manufacturer would you believe it?
Are you sure that a typical TT is using cast wheels?
I do know that TT testing for the larger tires has resulted in nothing that works. I heard that BFG will wait for forged wheels & 8 lugs before selling the new bigger tire. Maybe they know forged is better? Or maybe the test wheels (6 lug) were just cast show truck wheels?

Contributing issue is with a 17" wheel the tire usually has less rubber from rim to ground. More rubber means less load onthe wheel due to the lower spring rate of the tire. That is why the rice rockets with huge rims bounce down the street and the loose the drag races since the tire is not always in contact with the pavement.

Paul

A cast wheel is not weak.. Not calling anyone out just my 2 cents. I would love to see physical stress test's on cast vs. forged... All I can vouch for is cast wheels on tt's seem to be class standard with little to no issues... Can anybody pull up the lbs. of the different make of wheels in a single (say big tt 6 or 5 on 5.5) bolt pattern to keep a median?

Mike

[ChaseTruck754]

A cast wheel is not weak.. Not calling anyone out just my 2 cents. I would love to see physical stress test's on cast vs. forged... All I can vouch for is cast wheels on tt's seem to be class standard with little to no issues... Can anybody pull up the lbs. of the different make of wheels in a single (say big tt 6 or 5 on 5.5) bolt pattern to keep a median?

Mike

If you've ever seen the center section of a cast wheel rip out (stay on the hub) and have the wheel and tire go flying by the truck then you'd run forged only. I have and do.

When the Camburg truck grenaded and yard saled at MDR a few years back I was under my old room mates class 8 in the pit. I heard a noise and next thing I know people are yelling and my buddy is pushing the girls in the pit back towards the truck out of the way. By the time I got out from under the truck to see what was going on people were running towards the yard sale wad and the cast wheel was rolling by our pit. I guess parts (including the wheel that had broken) came flying our way.

That was an "epic fail" and more force than many wheels will see, but it's definitely not the 1st cracked/failed cast wheel I have seen.

[BDKW1]

I would love to see physical stress test's on cast vs. forged...

Once upon a time, I did a lot of wheel machining for a now defunct rim company (Kinesis).

They got there forged blanks from APP as a lot of other small wheel company's do. I have seen the FEA work ups on both types of wheels. Cast wheels are very marginal............

[shockseals.com]

A cast wheel is not weak.. Not calling anyone out just my 2 cents. I would love to see physical stress test's on cast vs. forged... All I can vouch for is cast wheels on tt's seem to be class standard with little to no issues... Can anybody pull up the lbs. of the different make of wheels in a single (say big tt 6 or 5 on 5.5) bolt pattern to keep a median?

Mike

If you've ever seen the center section of a cast wheel rip out (stay on the hub) and have the wheel and tire go flying by the truck then you'd run forged only. I have and do.

When the Camburg truck grenaded and yard saled at MDR a few years back I was under my old room mates class 8 in the pit. I heard a noise and next thing I know people are yelling and my buddy is pushing the girls in the pit back towards the truck out of the way. By the time I got out from under the truck to see what was going on people were running towards the yard sale wad and the cast wheel was rolling by our pit. I guess parts (including the wheel that had broken) came flying our way.

That was an "epic fail" and more force than many wheels will see, but it's definitely not the 1st cracked/failed cast wheel I have seen.

I def would NOT blame that wad up on a cast wheel! That was driver error...the wheel took the brunt of the abuse and broke.

Forged is significantly better than cast when talkign about wheels. Cast is cheap, therefore people use them.

[BDKW1]

That was driver error...

But Jerry's never wrong!

[SteveG]

That was driver error...

But Jerry's never wrong!

That and the beams didn't even bend!