Custom Wheels for the SAE Market?

[fsae racer]

A few former University of Florida team captains are considering manufacturing 2 and 3 piece wheels to serve the SAE market. They have access to the resources and manufacturing equipment to produce forged centers and quality shells, as well as a unique 2 piece design whereby the the center and the outer shell are made of one piece. This allows for very high backspacing (7+" on 8" rim), which many SAE designers find desireable. Of course, these wheels would not be as light as forged mag 1 piece BBS or the proprietary carbon wheels that some teams use; but they would be competive with the Kaiser, Panasport, and Kodiak products that many teams have so many problems with. The UF alumni remember their difficulties with Kodiak in particular, mostly the problem of getting the wheels once they were ordered. Additionally, any bolt pattern or mounting arrangement (centerlocking) could be achieved. Finally, these wheels could be designed to serve the needs of 500# car. Is there any interest in such a product?


...And for the homies....YoYoYoYo, Wassup my Niggaaaaasss!

[fsae racer]

A few former University of Florida team captains are considering manufacturing 2 and 3 piece wheels to serve the SAE market. They have access to the resources and manufacturing equipment to produce forged centers and quality shells, as well as a unique 2 piece design whereby the the center and the outer shell are made of one piece. This allows for very high backspacing (7+" on 8" rim), which many SAE designers find desireable. Of course, these wheels would not be as light as forged mag 1 piece BBS or the proprietary carbon wheels that some teams use; but they would be competive with the Kaiser, Panasport, and Kodiak products that many teams have so many problems with. The UF alumni remember their difficulties with Kodiak in particular, mostly the problem of getting the wheels once they were ordered. Additionally, any bolt pattern or mounting arrangement (centerlocking) could be achieved. Finally, these wheels could be designed to serve the needs of 500# car. Is there any interest in such a product?


...And for the homies....YoYoYoYo, Wassup my Niggaaaaasss!

[Jersey Tom]

..you can machine and setup your own forging dies? And press and all? Without people asking questions?

I'm impressed.

I'm sure there'd be plenty of interest for this. Every wheel manufacturer I dealt with wound up being sketchy or absurdly expensive in one way or another.

[N.Tsuji]

I am very interested in that.
How much does it cost?
Our team does not have much money.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by N.Tsuji:
I am very interested in that.
How much does it cost?
Our team does not have much money. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

What sizes we talking? How can you guarntee quality? Price is a huge factor in the amount of interest.

[Ben Beacock]

I would take quality (service and product) over price and would suggest that rookie teams do the same.

Also, try to have CAD files available for some common configurations. Then teams can find caliper clearances, a-arm clearances, and wheel stud lengths very easily on their own and possibly design to these sizes.

[Jersey Tom]

If you guys are serious about this and can put down some CAD and baseline prices, now would definitely be the time. Gettin to the point teams need wheel data for wheel assembly design. Past that point actually, IMO.

I'll make sure the 08 guys here are at least aware of this..

[Maverik]

Wasssup wasssupp, I'll throw in my two cents here as the current UF team captain, I've known the guys that might be doing this and I can guarantee the quality will be spot on if they do it, the machines they would use are more than capable and they have extensive knowledge of both design and fabrication of these sorts of things. So quality isn't a concern.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Maverik:
Wasssup wasssupp, I'll throw in my two cents here as the current UF team captain, I've known the guys that might be doing this and I can guarantee the quality will be spot on if they do it, the machines they would use are more than capable and they have extensive knowledge of both design and fabrication of these sorts of things. So quality isn't a concern. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nothing is perfect out of the box, and some flaws might only show up in real world testing.

Im sure your guys are good, but it should be expected that the first set the make will be what people want to be running.

[Jersey Tom]

Better question. Are they gonna look cool?

[Rex]

Most important question aside from quality is price - make 'em cheap and, assuming the quality is there, you'll win this market.

I'd even consider buying a set for an old car if they sucked (i.e. flexed) less than some of the previously mentioned brands and the price was really awesome...

[Pete Marsh]

I am interested in your process and machinery. I would have loved the ability to forge or cast Magnesium for the one piece centre/outer on the the wheels I did on last years car, but had to use sand cast Ali for them.
We use a different back spacing, mounting, inner rim attachment and lighter weight than most teams so would you have lots of different tooling to suit different ideas? Or perhaps a Mag blank that can be machined? Whats involved in the tooling?

Also, have you seen the inner and outer rim spun out of a lump of material left from forging the center to make a one piece wheel? very cool. I think thats what BBS do.

Pete

[cmeissen]

Kansas State would definetly be interested pending price, quality...

[damonlemmon]

there would definately be intrest from us in 10" 3 piece wheels with large inner shell offsets (7.5 or 8") and deep bell style (ie, not a big taper near the bolt flange) for caliper clearance. what is the timeline you are looking at for production?

[Drew Price]

As far as testing, the first round you might try making contact with the gents trying to produce some of their own tire test data, for grad work I believe, and see if they could run a prototype of this wheel while not attached to a car for some possible free/cheap stress testing, then proceed to testing on a vehicle?

My only concerns lie with the safety of the component, and before I bought anything I would want to see how many test cycles went into the design, since this is a new-this-year product.

I place some misguided trust in firms who have been making wheels for a while in that their testing must have been completed long ago, since every once in a while commercially available wheels do fail.

So what are the current plans for testing?

Best,
Drew

[wheelguynumber1]

I'm one of the guys looking at doing this thing. I've been pleased with some of the responses and questions this thread has gotten, so I've decided to hop in here so Mr. Michalski (fsae racer) can quit doing our dirty work. Anyone whose been involved with Nick knows he's a class act and we knew his rep around FSAE would get some attention on the subject. Thanks Nick!

We're just feeling out the market right now, but rest assured we have the contacts and resources to pull it off should we decide to go for it. It's a niche, and we wouldn't expect to ever sell more than 100 sets or so... That's why fsae teams currently get to deal with wheels that aren't really made for their cars. We think we can get the economics to work in ways that other manufacturers in this market may have overlooked. We'll see.

I'll get to some of the questions and throw out more specifics later Thurs. evening. I'm sure I'll get some informative feedback. Later.

LJ

[js10coastr]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jersey Tom:
Better question. Are they gonna look cool? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'd be down for a set of "Chromed FSAE Spinners".

[Jersey Tom]

We came really close to making and coming to competition with some 18" bolt-on carbon spinners.

[wheelguynumber1]

Okay, here's some more specifics about what we're thinking for an SAE wheel.

Price - More than Kodiak (~$350), less than BBS (~$800). Really only a market for maybe (MAYBE), 100 sets ; economies of scale mean they won't be really really cheap (can't make enough of 'em), which brings us to quality.

Quality - Forgings are only done by a handful of firms on the west coast. We pay for the forge tooling, receive the blanks and machine in-house. Metal certs and matl. traceability are standard in the wheel biz, so no worries about raw matl. Forge blanks have plenty of excess matl. to allow for different geometry and configs.

The biggest factor in wheel life is fatigue properties, which are affected by surface treatments. Shot peening and corner rounding greatly help this, but in all honesty, most SAE cars don't get more than a few hundred hours run time (and much respect to the teams that do), so what you're probably most interested in is stiffness. This is where a lot of the common wheel stock seems to have trouble. This area would get significant attention.

We intend to design some modularity into the wheels to account for different hub dia. and wheel mounting arrangements. This is no trouble if we leave the forge blanks a little large so we have the extra meat. Providing CAD data sounds like a really good idea to ensure the teams can package everything.

Lateral runout would not exceed +- .005 and radial +-.01 which is totally doable if we cut the bead seat on the spun shell after final assembly.

We can finish in full polish, anodize, or raw for those teams who paint wheels.

Delivery - Our goal will be to have wheels out the door in 3 weeks. Lead time is one of the main issues we see in the SAE wheel market, therefore minimizing it will be a high priority for us. As far as payment is concerned it would probably be a half up front, half on delivery type setup. These wheels are targeted at the SAE community, therefore every single wheel will end up on an SAE car. We believe every single SAE team should pay the same for them. Special sponsorships, discounts, etc will not be provided; a general SAE discount is already included in the price. (UF may be an exception, but even that will require some sort of football ticket payment plan.)

2pc Design - The 2 piece design previously mentioned is essentially the same as a 3 piece, except the outer rim shell and the center are machined from the same forging. This allows as much as 7.5in to 8in backspacing on an 8in wide wheel.

I'll try to toss up a picture or two of a 2pc wheel soon so you can see what I mean.

LJ

[Jersey Tom]

Out of curiosity.. the 'lack of stiffness' issue attributed to so many wheels.. do you find that in the rim or in the wheel center?

[cmeissen]

Hey guys is there any more info on this? Do you think it is going to happen or not?

[Christopher Catto]

i know forges is the way to go, but have you considered that if the outer rim and wheel centre is in one piece you can make the spokes reasonably deep and of a U-profile (like the wheels in UWA if I am not mistaken). then the stiffness issue may not be such a problem if you pressure cast aluminium alloy. this may save some cost. Frankly, as I have said in a post on hubs, the stiffness is generally critical at the wheel bearings more than at the wheel and if the spokes are about 30 mm deep I cannot believe the stiffness will be an issue. Even F1 designers would not be that fanatical. For goodness sake, some F1 teams run cast aluminium or magnesium gearboxes, and they KNOW they flex. But the cost and reliable technology is the winning factor for them.

just my op. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif