What Price, Vanity?

Fitting Budget Asian Wire Wheels on a Miata Based Kit Car

So far I have mostly avoided "how to" content because, for just about all my other tasks on this project, someone else has a YouTube video that demonstrates the job better than I could. But trying to figure out a workable and reasonably affordable way to get wire wheels on this car has been an ongoing exploration process. Hopefully my findings and solution will be of use to someone.

Three main sources I found for wire wheels were: 

1) Dayton Wire Wheels (Dayton Ohio USA). These are fantastic quality, but also very expensive. And some of the styling touches look more modern than vintage to my eye at least. Also, I could not get a solid answer from Dayton on whether the hub fitting and offset/backspacing for actual center lock wire wheels were going to fit my car. Dayton either does, or did, make a bolt-on wire wheel option for Miata (also couldn't get a solid answer whether these were still available or not). I even took measurements of all my Miata running gear and filled out their Fitment Form - and still couldn't get them to say whether their wheels would fit or not.

2) Motor Wheel Service (Slough, Berkshire, UK) These are the real deal - MWS make the original wire wheels for many British cars and have done for many, many years. They will also restore vintage wire wheels to like-new condition.

Original style wire wheels from MWS or Dayton use splined hubs like the above left. The horizontal threads are where the spinner (big wheel nut) screws on. The vertical splines just below are what keep the wheel and the hub spinning together rather than the wheel spinning on the hub (braking and acceleration would not work like that). The chrome piece on the left is a MWS hub adapter - bolt this on to your regular lug nut hub and then you can mount a splined center lock wheel. My problem with MWS is none of their hubs would fit directly on a Miata. They directed me to a machine shop, also in the UK, that makes adapters for their hub adapters. Again, MWS wheels are great, but very expensive - plus then having to buy their hub adapters - and get a machinist in the UK to make hub adapter adapters. Add to that, the machinist was about as responsive to my inquires as Dayton, AND the people at MWS could not help me figure out the fitment and offset... and it felt like again I'd be paying premium prices for something I couldn't be sure was going to work and getting less than premium service along the way.

3) Big Factory Somewhere in Asia. I have seen a lot of wheels that use the hub system above right (the red one) which I suspect are all made in the same factory. Multiple shops around the USA import and sell these wheels. Most of which are located somewhere on the Bling Spectrum:

L to R: Bling-y, Bling-er, Really Way Too Bling, and Instant Death By Bling

From all appearances and street rep, Big Factory makes perfectly serviceable quality wheels, but it seemed as if nobody in the US ever called them up and said "I'd like to try selling some straightforward vintage-looking wire wheels that you don't need protective eyewear to look at. Can you make them like that?"

Until I found Wheel Specialists (Lincoln Nebraska USA). 

Wheel Specialists' wire wheels use the same hub and perimeter locking system as all the other Big Factory bling wheels so I'm pretty sure they're a Big Factory product. Nor are these Nebraskans afraid to do bling, if that's what you're looking for. But they also have some varieties that look as if they could be mounted on a vintage British sports car without looking like Britain got mixed up with Byzantium.

I was also favorably impressed by how Nebraska Man was able to answer my questions about fitment, offset, etc. He immediately understood my project and what mattered to me, and suggested the wheels that would look most vintage-appropriate as well as a set of quality tires at a very competitive price.

Left: Big Asian Factory's center lock hub adapter bolted on to Miata hub. Note how they ride very close to the brake caliper (discussed below)
Right: the inside of the wheel has these little teeth around the edge that fit into the teeth-dents all around the edge of the hub adapter, serving the same purpose as the splines on the original style British wheels and hubs.

So it seemed like giving Nebraska Man wheels was worth a try and so my gracious long-suffering wife bought me the wheels and tires for my 57th birthday present. Nebraska Man was so prompt that the wheels sat in our play room in their boxes for over a week before birthday and getting my first look at them, which did help build the suspense.

Installation

Mounting the rears was straightforward. The only fiddly bits required were hub-centric rings - little spacers to make up the difference between the Miata's 54.1mm hub centers and the 63.4mm insides of the hub adapters (centering the wheels on the lug nuts is not recommended). Hub centric rings are cheap and available everywhere. Easy, cheap, perfect fit.

The fronts were a bit more challenging due to the caliper interference problem. My first thought was to open SolidWorks and design a part that would a) adapt the hub center diameter like the hub centric rings, and b) move Big Factory's hub adapter outboard by 4mm to clear the calipers.

For about $50 in materials and a long day out at Pops Racer's shop, I could have made two of the above on Pops' CNC mill. Then I found US Wheel Adapters (Lubbock Texas, USA) who sell the same thing for $150 (shipping included). Time/money/cursewords analysis said just pay the nice man in Texas to make them and they showed up 3 days later, very well made, perfect fit, no time wasted, no curse words elicited.

But the extra spacer thickness on the fronts meant I needed longer wheel studs. These were about $15 on eBay. 

Side note for the fastidious: the OEM rear studs were just long enough to fill the lug nuts with no threads protruding - so the length of the threads engaged is greater than the diameter of the stud, which has always been my benchmark for adequate purchase. If you want to see threads past the lug nuts all the way around, you'll need longer studs for the rear as well.

Original stud (mounted on finger) compared to extra length stud (mounted on hub). Getting the OEM studs out required a bit of penetrating oil, as evidenced by the puddle on the floor below.

Then mount the brake rotor and the US Wheels hub centric spacer:

Next bolt on the Big Factory hub adapter:

Left: Blue threadlocker - for when you're pretty sure you won't want to take this apart any time soon. (Red is for when you're really sure)
Right: On a 4x100 bolt pattern, there is not enough space to get a socket on the lug nuts - so you have to torque them down with  an open-end wrench. Every shop needs a big screwdriver for egregious misuse (in addition to the other big screwdriver, reserved for proper uses). In this case, egregiously misused to prevent the hub turning while torqueing the lug nuts. I thought I might have to cut off the excess stud length but they clear the insides of the wheels just fine.

Then, finally, mount the wheels using the center lock spinners. Yes, bashing them tight with a lead hammer is actually the correct way to do this. My understanding is that the hammer is exactly the right weight to do this job - if you just let the hammer fall on the wings of the spinner, you will get the correct torque.

Summary Thoughts

Unless you're a wire wheel monomaniac and just can't imagine a British sports car without wire wheels, just about every other option is cheaper, easier, less maintenance, and lighter. But if you're a wire wheel monomaniac, that's what you are and this seems like a decent all around solution. And they are actual center lock wire wheels, which will matter to you if you are a truly certifiable monomaniac in need of immediate psychiatric attention (your humble author raises his hand).

The total price I paid for the wheels, the hubs, the tires, mounting and balancing, and all the fiddly bits is less than I would have paid for just the wheels and hubs from MWS or Dayton. 

If I could have found them, I the total price for bolt-on wire wheels would have been about the same as I paid for these wheels, tires, and all the fiddly bits.

I'm really picky about tires and usually partial to Michelin. But the Michelins have a very square profile that screams "I was not around in the 1950s." Nebraska Man set me up with Conti Pro Contact which rate very highly in every category except winter weather performance - which I do not anticipate will be a major problem for my open-top toy roadster. The overall wheel/tire combo certainly does look appropriate for a vintage sports car.

Speaking of tires: you can't just take wire wheels to any random tire shop and get tires mounted. Best case they realize they don't have the right gear and they refuse to do the job. Worst case they will ruin your wheels for you. This is one of the reasons I wanted to get my tires as well as the wheels from Nebraska Man.

If you happen to be building an ANC Replicar, watch this blog as we find out together whether these wheels and tires fit the bodywork well (or at all). I have heard that gaining 20-25mm track width at every corner is about right. By my measurements, this setup gained me 19mm on the rears and 24mm on the fronts, so, hopefully... Lord willin' and the crick don't rise... the body fitment should work.

If you happen to be interested in fitting wire wheels to your Miata, you'll need to make sure you have enough clearance from the fenders for this to work.

The rear subframe, brakes, and suspension parts for my project car came from a 1999 Miata. The front subframe is from a Mk2 UK Miata. (Mk2 is what they call NB over there). 

I do think that wire wheels in the end are an unnecessarily complicated vanity, for which cheaper and easier substitutes are readily available. It amounts to a lot of time effort and money to achieve an aesthetic vibe. 

Which makes sense, because this whole ill-advised sports car project fits that same description.

I am pleased with the appearance. The "shallow dish" offset - spokes close to the outer rim and relatively large backspacing - is similar to what most of the vintage British sports car wire wheels looked like. And the profile of the tires is reasonably period-appropriate too.
Aesthetic vibe achieved.