911 alloy lug nuts on 914

[mid4mike]

I have replaced the lug bolts with studs on my 914 2.0. It has the factory Fuchs 914 alloy wheels. The car is driven only on the street and has street tires (Bridgestone RE950). Does anyone know if the 911 alloy lug nuts are strong enough to keep the wheels on the car in spirited street driving as there are only 4 instead of the 5 as on a 911?

[So.Cal.914]

They probably would be , but do you want to bet your life on it? Steel.

[mike mueller]

yea, it's such a bad idea the factory used alloy nuts all the way up to the late-90's (they went to bolts for the 996 series cars)
(insert sarcastic smilie here )

The main reason open end lug nuts are required for RACING (which means that people have to be sheep and follow the other sheep 'cause you know they have "race" cars being driven on the street ) is that it is easier to confirm thread engangment (you want X amount of threads showing, which for our 14mm studs is I think 9 turns)

The alloy lug nuts have almost twice the amount of thread engagment..however they will not take the abuse of air-tools as much as the steel units.....

[Lou Rachwitz]

Originally posted by mike mueller
yea, it's such a bad idea the factory used alloy nuts all the way up to the late-90's (they went to bolts for the 996 series cars)
(insert sarcastic smilie here )

The main reason open end lug nuts are required for RACING (which means that people have to be sheep and follow the other sheep 'cause you know they have "race" cars being driven on the street ) is that it is easier to confirm thread engangment (you want X amount of threads showing, which for our 14mm studs is I think 9 turns)

The alloy lug nuts have almost twice the amount of thread engagment..however they will not take the abuse of air-tools as much as the steel units.....

Why would there be almost twice the amount of thread engagement with alloy nuts?

[mike mueller]

I dunno, that is how the factory made them....2X might be an exaggeration, it's more like 1.5X I think, I'd have to measure one of mine......

[Dan (almaden)]

Just don't use screw in studs?!

[Lou Rachwitz]

I'm confused, are you saying that the alloy nuts are "wider" or "larger" than the steel one? I was thinking that you might have meant the amount of contact area was more on the alloys, which didn't make sense to me.

[Dan (almaden)]

the alloy lug nuts must be deeper than about 15MM which is ~ what the depth of the steel lugs are. IIRC. I think the alloy lug nuts are about 21-22 mm in depth. So with the alloy lug you get thread engagement ~22mm vs. 15mm on the steelies.

[Tobra]

The alloy lug nuts are softer, as I understand it. I still don't understand why the lug bolts are so freakin expensive

Because they're for a Porsche.

Later, Don