Project Kouki, part 3 - execution

The wheel specs ended up being 17x10.5 ET13 and 17x11 ET12.

The next day, I quickly sealed them.  Copying Tony's technique of masking the edges of the joins up, I managed to get the silicon bead (Sikaflex 227) on quickly and neatly.  Sealing took less than an hour for all four :)

Then had a bit of a photoshoot before it went for tyres.

With a bit of advice, Kennedy ended up choosing 215/45 for the fronts and 225/45 for the rears.  Lower profile could have been opted for but these were closest to the original rolling diameter and for the amount of stretch we're gonna put through it, I thought having a 45 profile would be more forgiving on the tyre sidewalls.  Achilles were chosen for their price and popularity with the stance crowd due to the way they stretch.  And it was a good choice.  JAX Merrylands were responsible for the tyres and fitting, top work and service as always.

A week on since fitting and no leaks, no dramas :)

So the wheels finally went on Kennedy's S14 for the House of Stance meet, pretty sure it went down pretty well!  We were supposed to have some polished half-height hex caps on for the meet but they were still in the shop being polished up, so I lent him my EuroImageTuning flat caps instead.  I think they look much better than the hexes!

Cheers :)

Project Kouki, part 2 - assembly

The past two weeks were dedicated to organising the House of Stance meet with Nikita Esco and rebuilding these wheels.  The lips arrived on time and Kennedy (new owner of these wheels) was keen to get them done for the HoS meet so we got a move on.

Before I go on, I should mention that the donor centres were RS264 (17x7 ET45) and RS265 (17x8 ET50).

When I first saw the specs, I found it odd that the offsets didn't quite match up; the lips were the same (0.5") and they were sandwich-mounted, which meant the barrels made up for the 1" difference.  That said, the offsets should've differed by exactly 12.7mm, but as you can see with the original specs, that wasn't the case.  So I inspected the centres more closely.

As you can see in the above photo of the centres on even ground, the centres differ in design; the left is more flat-faced (like the RS262 and RS263 in Project FD) whereas the right is more convex.  We test fitted the centres and the brake clearance is identical; only difference is, the convex face will have a higher offset if the same width barrels and lips were used on both models.  As such, we decided to use them for the fronts to provide a more staggered-look. 

Back to the build; first on the agenda was to have Kennedy get the wheels powdercoated up.  We had a few dramas with the powdercoater which ended with a no-charge set of mediocre-finished white centres.  Hard to notice and easy to touch-up, and we were on a deadline, so we moved on.

Kennedy came over and provided much needed help with the cleaning and prepping the barrels and lips for the rebuild.  Numb fingers by the end of it all.

A way to determine if the barrels are standard BBS or not is to see if they have a serial number stamped on the mounting surface.  The barrel with the welded perimeter didn't have this number.

House of Stance OGs dropped by to check out the wheels.  Worked to the wee hours of the night, but we got it done.  I ended up finishing them off inside the house whilst enjoying a beer, with the Avengers on.

 

Follow me on Instagram @rayrayray086 ;)

Project Kouki, part 1 - drawing board

At the moment I've got multiple projects going on - this is another 17" BBS RS build for another 5x114.3 equipped car.  Most of you will have already guessed what car this project will be destined for (hint: project name), and some epic sizes no doubt will be birthed here.

First things first, the donor.

 

RS264: 17x7 ET45 5x114.3

RS265: 17x8 ET50 5x114.3.

Perfect specs for achieving big dish with big width.

Some preliminary widened specs were drawn up.

It goes without saying that I won't be revealing the final specs until the project is finished :)

Anyway, upon receiving the wheels I came upon so undesirable features...

It's becoming all too common to see these 20+ year old wheels all battered and shit.  A shame really.  I was really hoping all the barrels could be reused (lips I didn't really care, being replaced anyway).  The RS264 used the smaller, damaged 6" barrels (yes, both were damaged).

The RS265 had good 7" barrels, though it was easy to see that they had been repaired previously.  The barrel sprayed black seems to have been rerolled and there were signs of some welding work (buckle and crack repair) but the work seems top notch (similar to what I've encountered with Peter @ OZWheels @ Minchinbury, now unfortunately closed).  The other barrel seems to have had a consistent, circumferential welding bead along where the hump of the wheel would normally be situated.  The barrel could have possibly buckled inwards (as opposed to where it occurs commonly on the outside edge or rim profile), i.e. right where the hump is, hence the need to weld extra metal to maintain that part of the wheel.  Whatever the reasons, the RS265s look like they've been repaired well, and there were no visual buckles or cracks.

New lips, bolts/nuts and centrecaps have been ordered.  Hopefully they'll arrive in time for an upcoming event, so this project will need to be built on a pretty rushed timeline. 

As such, I'll be replacing the damaged 6" barrels with some of my own stashed-away barrels.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think they're 6.5" barrels, meaning the final specs will be slightly different to what I had calculated above.  If indeed they're 6.5" barrels, then the new possibilities will be:

0.5" lips -- 6" barrels -- 17x7 ET45
0.5" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x7.5 ET51
2.5" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x9.5 ET26
3.0" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x10 ET19
3.5" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x10.5 ET13
4.0" lips -- 6.5" barrels -- 17x11 ET6

They're still being dismantled currently, but we'll be cleaning them up and getting them ready so we can just bang them straight on when they arrive.

Project FD, part 1 - measurements

This one's gonna be special.  I bought a set of 17" BBS RS ages ago for less than a pair of Nikes and was planning to save them for a build for myself, but a mate has now chimed up for a set and thought, why not use this set since I won't be using them for a while?  So here it is, part 1 of this new build based around a set of staggered BBS RS262, RS263.

I had disassembled them a while back.  Plenty of oxidation on the lips and under the paint in certain sections of the centres, baked on brake dust on the centres and barrels, lips were gutter rashed and the bigger barrels have cracks.  Bolts are, surprisingly, still very shiny and the caps were in decent condition.

Some preliminary fitment on the car that the wheels will be destined for were done and some calculations were done.  Fitment will be aggressive.