FYI - Ebay steering wheel hubs.
 

As most of you already know, going the cheap route when buying things for your car usually ends horribly. You usually end up having to do the same job again using the "right" quality part, where you end up paying more in the end than if you would have just done it right in the first place.

Here is a little evidence to prove my point.

I was sick of the ugly ass original 2 spoke wheel, I decided to go with a cheap wheel and hub combo from China or something like that specifically for the Rx7.

Attachment 717936

As you can see it looks ok. feels ok.......It was not!
I tightened the nut down but there was still a slight bit of play in the wheel (fore and aft) Since it was not too bad, I figured it had to do with the Chinese tolerences.

The moment I fired up the car I had the 4 beep steering angle warning.
I tried and tried different angles and such with no luck. I tried the resistance check in the FSM with a multimeter, totally out of wack. I tried a known good, new-to me sensor with the same result. Something was not right. Anyways, long story short. I noticed the hub was putting a lot of pressure down on the sensor (enough to crack the original sensor). I put the original wheel back on, with the new sensor and the beeps disappeared. Meanwhile I ordered a wheel hub combo from MOMO. I went with the Tuner model. The Momo wheel worked just like the stock wheel (no beeps).

Attachment 717937

Since the Original wheel and the MOMO wheel were ok, I went straight to the hubs to see what the problem was. Here is the original wheel hub. Please note the spacer on this hub, which prevents it from CRUSHING the sensor.

Attachment 717938

This is the made in China hub It fits and would probably work fine if you delete the steering angle/ turn cancel sensor. So to all the penny pinchers out there trying to save a buck, Wait till u have the cash to do it right or dont do it at all.

Attachment 717939

Good video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMxB4RpCDzA

and than.. lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=d3Eq0ZBeTKY

The "spacer" you point out really doesn't have anything to do with the problem you had.
The wheel "seats" and stops on the internal taper behind the splines, not the external protrusion.
It's easily possible to have a good fitting hub with a flat bottom like the Chinese example.

the second test clearly showed the flaws in the driftworks test, you dumbshit.

You get what you pay for.

I have no idea what you're talking about, did you even watch the movie? The guy's defending the product, but he's still wrong. Applying a fairly even force on the center of the wheel is COMPLETELY different from applying force to one side of the wheel, and a wheel needs to be able to withstand both. A steering wheel absolutely should not be so easy to bend by applying force to one point around the wheel, and DEFINITELY shouldn't bend under the weight of a man standing on its center like the one in the video did.

How do you guys feel about the NRG short hubs?

I have one, and there is a slight bit of play if you push and pull on the wheel hard.

Have mixed emotions about cheap China junk, on one hand US made stuff seems to be so marked up as to require ky to install. used to hope that a little competition would bring prices to a more reasonable level. My recent buy of a used proto 1 1/8 socket from a tool seller on ebay is about the best i can do. got good quality- made in USA- old enough to be steel from this country-don't have to worry when it gets a 8ft breaker bar- and was less than mayo's junk tool sales (HF). better still is to buy on sites like this, and they are a boon in times like these.

My point does not just apply to these wheels but most parts in general. I just want to reinforce that. I see too many "kids" in this forum spending all their allowance on cheap e-bay junk. If you cannot afford to do it right drive your car stock. Put your $'s into getting your car to run like new/ maintaining your car like it should be and maybe rotaries wont have such a bad reputation.

i was being faceatious, lol. yes the pressure applied downward towards the center of the hub is going to be the strongest, even in this knockoff vendor's video you can still see the crappy wheel bending under his foot.

in the end it still was bent, and he sais "it's not ben that murch".

it's not just US made stuff, i find that a fair amount of strong american companies now use china to produce either some or most of their products that used to be 100% american made, while only knocking off 10% of the price to stay "competetive" with their chinese competition ironically. even imported japanese parts i bet a fair amount of thier product is outsourced but quality srictly enforced which still CAN be done from china labor, yet you still pay premium prices for "name brand" products. so it is partially the industry at fault for caving in to the price wars of the cheap knockoffs. personally if someone is stupid enough to buy a "authentic Nardi steering wheel" without knowing what they're looking at, then the name brand producers really still have nothing to worry about.

lesson learned for the idiots who overpaid for a steering wheel that will lean with them into corners.


but as for these hubs, easy fix would be to make your own shims. i would worry more about the hub cracking under lateral stress than the shimming. i have a very nice new real MOMO wheel for my FC but no install kit yet, was contemplating either way. do i want to overpay a shitload for a momo hub @$75 that cost them about $5 to make or try one of these knockoff hubs that really don't look much different. decisions decisions, like anyone i hate pissing money into the wind for something that shouldn't be so expensive. the wheel came with a mercedes MOMO hub adapter which i will never be able to swap for or sell at the $75 i am going to have to pay.

...yeah I was really :scratch: that it was you saying that, but the sarcasm missed me I guess

Some parts are harder to screw up than others. For example, wheel spacers can't be that tough to manufacture properly, and while fitment of body parts is important a lot of the quality of their function is up to the installer. And anything you install on your car ought to be inspected first anyway as best you can.

i would hope so, not like anyone wants to install a wheel quick release to find the wheel in their hand detached from the steering shaft while cruising down the freeway. haha.

The e-bay hubs are cast aluminum. the MOMO hubs are made of high strength steel. If you look at the picture of the ebay hub, there are 4 holes 2 of them I drilled to see if offsetting the hub would fix the steering angle issue. It felt like I was drilling into lead.

I would be afraid of the cheap cast aluminum to break while driving. another reason why I did not wait to order the "real deal".

Perhaps there are some descent hubs out there but this is the one i bought, so please stay away. I dont want anyone DEAD thx.
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...lp4D6HqXRR9FFQ

the momo hub is cast aluminum with steel legs(sitting right next to me, i sleep with it at night! just kidding), granted it's likely a better quality aluminum as i can barely scratch it with an awl. the chinese aluminums might possibly have some lead filler in them... they like lead because it adds weight, giving the impression you're getting more and their machines shed it like they are built out of the stuff and their "aluminum" is very soft for some reason. there is different types of aluminum but i honestly don't feel like guessing the grade quality of each of these hubs.

but anyways some steel thread inserts would fix that issue. the momo portion where the steering wheel bolts to is steel unlike the knockoffs which are all aluminum. the momo hub where it bolts to the column is aluminum though.

If you are looking for a quality brand hub for a little less than the Momo, I'm very happy with my Splash. Splash is the street market Works Bell line. I bought one for the FC for $60 new last year. The horn and turn signal cancel work fine with it. The machining on the product is of good quality. It is made in Japan rather than China.

Good to know, I cant wait to get rid of the stock wheel.

I have an oldskool Momo wheel and when i bought it from the guy he threw in a cheap ebay china hub adapter. It did indeed crush the shit out of the turn signal/ steering angle sensor, so that kinda sucked but i can live with manually turning off the blinker, no biggie. However, when some jackasses broke into my car and tried to steal the steering wheel they were unsuccessful in stealing it, they WERE sucessfull in loosening it until it wasn't engaging the hub adapter!!! I didnt find that out until i tried to turn! No wrecks, thank god, but it did COMPLETLEY strip the the hub adapter trying to turn it while loose! You get what you pay for.

I understand that they can be a pain in the ass, but a cheap hub can easily be used with the factory steering wheel angle sensor. I have a $20 eBay hub on my FC with a Momo wheel and after modifying the hub and steering wheel angle sensor it hasn't given me a problem in over 2 years.

On the steering wheel angle sensor, I shaved down the tube like piece with the 2 plastic prongs on it. I trimmed around half of it's width off, but left the 2 plastic prongs in place and just trimmed them down to sit in the back of the hub.

On the hub, the 2 holes on the back for the steering wheel angle sensor could not be positioned at the correct angle to match up with the 2 plastic prongs on the sensor, so I drilled 2 more holes in the back of the hub so that it would align correctly when the steering wheel is centered.

It took maybe 30 mins to tweak the hub and sensor. I understand that it's still a cheap hub and a more quality one might have not required any modification, but I'm just another poor guy with an FC... I should have taken a picture of mine since I've seen quite a few people with the issue of cheap hubs not sitting correctly with the steering wheel angle sensor.

I do, however, strongly encourage anyone who wishes to have a removable steering wheel to not go the cheap route and buy a good brand and quality release attachment.

Thanx for that BrettLinton7, I too bought a cheap Ebay wheel with a Boss kit hub. D shaped so I can get my knee under the wheel. I'm bumping this old thread so I can easily find your post and tweek my Boss hub.
I'm searching for a "how-to" on removing the stock wheel from a FD and deleting the Air Bag control from X-09 in the driver side kick panel up to the wheel and not getting a air bag light. (93 base) Is the airbag light controlled by the box on the heater core or by the FD01 joint box ? My dash is out right now.
Joe