Steering Wheel Quick Release Option; for those that need to be different...

917_Langheck · 917_Langheck's Garage

Not wanting to hijack the recent quick release hub thread I thought I would add my solution to the mix in a separate string.

One of my first "make it mine" options I had planned was a nice, thick-grip steering wheel for my '84 911. Not being one to do the typical thing, Momo/Nardi wheels were ruled out; Moto Lita, in. Fortunately, a 15" flat three spoke with holes example was lagging on the fleabay, and ended up lagging at my place after the price got to a good point. Unfortunately, Moto Lita are very proud of their hubs. Very proud.

...several years later....

After doing much calculating to arrive at the preferred distance between the wheel and the dash, and the wheel and me I concluded that a hub section of 132 mm would locate the wheel in the space I was looking for – a fair bit closer to the dash from the original 74-84 three spoke wheel.

So how to mount a non-MOMO wheel to the 911 when, practicably, the only available aftermarket hubs of reasonable price are MOMO hubs?

I figured if I wasn't going to go with a Moto Lita hub I may as well look at a quick-release (QR) setup. After searching through a number of QR options, all ended up with the wheel closer to me than the already too close factory ’74-’84 three-spoke. I needed to move the wheel at least 10mm closer to the dash. Search after search ended up with stack heights beyond 140 mm (when numbers were published, which frequently wasn’t the case).

One day, at a cars and coffee event, I saw an NRG QR hub. A little digging around the web and I found all the parts to piece together my hub. The base assembly is the NRG-SRK-188H, which fits the G-model 40 spline shaft. To this I added the shortest QR that would work with the hub, NRG-SRK-257 – there are many others, but this looked like a better iteration to me. This QR is drilled for MOMO, but NRG has a 70mm to 101.6mm adapter that is only 0.5 inches thick (NRG-SRK-69). This resulted in a 126mm stack, which was even better for my flat wheel.

What are the downsides you ask. Well, the hub doesn’t come with a cancel pin, so you have to remember to turn off the indicator. I suppose you could retrofit a 911 cancel ring, but I didn’t have a spare to sacrifice to the R&D. The 911 horn contact also does not reach far enough to contact the NRG hub trace. A horn is imperative with our cars, so I made an extended contact by bridging the original contact points with a 12-ga wire which a portion of the jacket was removed so the copper would contact the ring and nothing else – otherwise the horn will sound!! Then I wired up a remote button and stuck that through one of the holes in the wheel – once I figure out a proper horn cap, I’ll fix that bodge job.

Upsides? Well, the wheel is in a more comfortable reach. The stalks are at fingertip distance, so no bending the hand around to reach them. It’s a quick release, which means it’s easier to get in and out of the car. And all of the gauges are visible, even the oil temp and pressure, which was usually obscured. Lastly, strangely the car felt like I was able to drive it differently. The old original wheel was fine, but something about this set up made the car drive differently – in a good way. (Obviously, changing the steering wheel wouldn’t change the physical dynamics of the car but it felt that way for some reason – maybe it was an inducement of memories of driving karts in the distant days past.)

Anyway, that's my story... (if you dont like it, blame @famoroso, he made me post this

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NRG-SRK-188H

NRG-SRK-257

NRG-SRK-69

Disconnected

Red horn wire solution

Horn button solution - actually, very comfortably placed

Gauges!