New Ebay wheels

[74goldtarga]

I have been looking for new wheels for my 951 which is a street/track slowly leaning toward track car. I decided to go with Toyo Proxes RA-1 for the tires and figured keeping 7 + 8 by 16 would work fine and help the budget. I was going to try to find phone dials but this set of flat-dish style wheels (7+8 ET 52.3) came up on Ebay and I got them for $200 including shipping. They're kind of dinged up and grimy though and I have thought about refinishing them. They are same finish as club sports. Anyone know if these are anodized or have experience refinishing these kinds of wheels? They are either bare or have clearcoat/anodization on them. I will try to post a picture. Thanks.

[Techno Duck]

If your talking about the 7-slot sewer lids then i am pretty sure they are anodized. You can strip them down and paint them if you dont care to much about appearance

A good setup is to run 8 inch wheels all around and use the same size tire, 225/50/16 or 245/45/16. This way you can rotate front to back and side to side if the tread pattern allows.

[74goldtarga]

Thanks Duck,

I do care a bit about the appearance and I don't want to paint them although I'd be interested to see them in black. I'm thinking of stripping the anodization and then doing sort of a brushed look polish. How hard would that be to do?

[Techno Duck]

Someone on the Rennlist forum has 7-slots painted black on his red car, and its actually not that bad looking. He also has fairly dark tint on his windows so it gives it a very 'stealthy' look. I have a set of four 16x7's i got for free which im saving for winter tires when i get around to buying them. I personally think the 7-slots are one of the most ugly Porsche design wheels made..but i would be happy with how the black looks on my car.

http://www.p-caronline.com/directory/fsaeracer03

The polishing can be done but is no small feat, it takes a long time to do. I would defenetley get the Mother's powerball thing to speed things up.

[74goldtarga]

My original plan was to get some 17" Kinesis rims with Hoosiers, then I did the math. If I am going to stay with 16's I can guarantee you I will be the only guy running flat-dish wheels at our track events which will set me apart, dubiously. I agree they are about the ugliest - the extremity of their uglyness attracts me somehow. The fact that they were dirt cheap, are forged, light and the right size helps. I am going to run Toyo Proxes RA-1 225, and 245s on them. Can you run 245s on the front with 8s?

I took a polishing buff with some black compound to one wheel which did absolutely nothing and I'm afraid of spending hours refinishing them. Maybe I should have them sandblasted and painted gloss black.

[Techno Duck]

245's on the 8-inch rims should be fine, thats the widest you can go anyhow. They should fit fine on the front, ive fit my 16x8 D90's on the front with 245/45/16 without rubbing issues, my car is also about a inch and a quarter lower than stock. I do have my spring perches cut off on the struts though..so you may want to verify it does not rub on those if you still have stock diameter springs.

Are the wheels stripped already? A guy in my area polished up his 7-slot's to a mirror finish. He said he put oven cleaner all over the face of the wheel for 5 minutes to strip the old coating. He said you must watch it and not let it sit to long or it will eat through the aluminum. Anyhow put it on and spray it off. He told me he spent the next few days polishing each wheel by hand in his living room while watching TV. He used a aluminum polish to get the shine.

I was thinking of doing this with a set of my D90's, but its a little to much 'bling' for me. I just spray my wheels black or gun metal and like the look with my red car. Both sets of my 968 wheels are black and the 7-slots are going to be flat black aswell. My D90's are the only wheels i still have in silver.

[74goldtarga]

Thanks Duck. The wheels are not stripped but the oven cleaner may work. Your friend hand polished them with a rag and liquid compound? Despite the time involved it sounds too easy - I could probably manage to find the time for that if it wasn't too messy/complicated. The bling factor would be ok - my car is silver anyway. I might try one wheel and if I didn't like it paint them black. Thanks again for the help.

[Razorback1980]

Check out Justin L's cars. It appears he is running those as his track wheels.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?threadid=269128&perpage=20&highlight=garage&pagenumber=2

[74goldtarga]

Thanks Razorback, after seeing the silver rose car with the blacked out wheels I am convinced that I wouldn't be happy with that, unique but not quite my taste - so I guess I'll have to find a way to polish them. It is still very unclear the best and or easiest way to do that. Thanks again.

[924RACR]

How to polish your flat-dish rims (with pics - scroll down):
http://924.org/techsection/wheel_refinishing.htm