questions about non reinforced fd wheels
 

Well i made the mistake of purchasing wheels without making sure they were the reinforced version. The person i bought them from said that they were off a 94 so i made a dumb assumption... i Purchased 2 from this person and 2 from someone else...

So... i have 2 reinforced wheels and 2 non reinforced wheels... They are going on my 89 toyota supra... which weighs about 800 lbs more than the FD. What are the chances that these 93 wheels are going to crack on me? Should i sell these off and get the reinforced type or am i going to be ok?

Also... if i do keep them... which set should i put in the front or rear?

Overall... how serious is the problem with the 93 wheels...

If you are driving on the street, I wouldn't worry about it. If you plan on road racing the car, a different set of wheels might be a good idea.

well im going to be autocrossing/drifting... but only once a month or so...

i have 120k miles on original 93 wheels and they ain't cracked yet.

i think that cracking thing is in extreme cases. you should be fine.

I'm stepping up to take the heat, because this was an honest mistake. I sold those 2 rims to Cramerizking....but I don't understand how they're not reinforced. They're off my 94, and I thought the rule was simple: 94s and 95s were reinforced?

Apparently not, since he (Cramerizking) told me the reinforced ones have thicker spokes and bell shaped reliefs in the hub area (see pic).

I'm currently trying to rectify the situation w/ Cramerizking, because although it was an honest mistake on my part, it's still a mistake. So we'll see how that goes. On that note, however, I have yet to have a single unsatisified customer on anything I've sold...(see my feedback in the Good guy/Bad guy section). So I'll do my utmost to make him happy.

As for the reinforced issue, can anyone chime in on whether the rule holds that 94s and 95s = reinforced, or are there exceptions??

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...id=77669&stc=1

For short races, like an autocross, you will be fine. Since your car is significantly heavier than an FD, I wouldn't road race on them.

I did some research and found that they were making both rims at the same time. I believe that the lightweight thincast were then used for the automatics and the reinforced ones for the manual tranny cars. Then the original manufacturer was phased out for the better, heavier rims.

I bought a set of supposed 95 rims that ended up being manufactured in early 1993. My rims on my auto car were from a later month in 1993 and I assumed they were already reinforced. After pulling them off, they were the thincast.

The only true way to tell is the manufacturing logo. One has a double HH in an oval and the other is a JIC. I believe the JIC is the thicker cast and the double HH in oval is the thincast.

Can anyone dispute or verify the above?

Tim

Tim,

This is the only part I'd like to *possibly* dispute. My 94 is an R2, so it's obviously a manual. Apparently, they're not reinforced?? But I don't think Cramerizking tried verifying this via the logo...I hope he does and lets us know, cuz I'm curious if that'll verify or deny the "bell shaped" theory.

Also, while I understand I didn't buy the car new, so I don't know the history of the car 100% to verify that those are the original rims, it's kinda hard for me to see why those 2 rims specifically would be off a 93, considering those were the 2 rear rims... so it wouldn't be a case of scraping the rims on one side and replacing them. Plus the car was practically bone stock minus intake and exhaust when I bought it....

But hey, thanks for your research, and hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this soon enough...

~Ramy

The wheels fdnewbie send me have hh in a circle... there is something that resembles "jic" on the other wheels i have but otherwise i dont see anything else.

just to clarify a bit more... if you read that article... it cuts off the part that tells you which is which. But... it does say that the non reinforced weigh about 1.5 lbs less.

I weighed both and the wheels to the right were 1.3 lbs heavier on my scale.

im not saying this thread in particular... but a thread like this should be in the faq if there isnt one already... i dont remember seeing one.

interesting, the OEM wheels from my 94 MT PEP (manufactured 12/93) appear to be the non reinforced wheels. My wheels look like the wheel on the left of the picture and have the hh.
Rick

Interesting indeed. While I'm not happy about the mixup, I'm happy that it seems this mixup has brought up an issue I've NEVER seen on the forum before: the "94 & 95 wheels = reinforced" seems to not be a real rule at all...

Who knows...maybe some ppl did know about this, but again, I've never seen it on the forum myself. I think that's kinda ironic. We just got a new fact 11 years into the game... :p:

It's been talked about, but most still follow what you used to think about 93/94-95 wheels. :)

Oops... err....my ummm search button must not be working very well... lol

Wheel liability
 

Of note: If Mazda knowingly sold wheels that were subsequently redesigned for safety reasons ( reinforced=safety), the original wheels should have been replaced under a TSB.
Send Mazda USA an email requesting a clarification.

It seems to be hit or miss as to which wheels your car has. I know that Mazda switched wheel suppliers, but I don't know where the overlap is on when the cars got the reinforced wheels. My '94 has the reinforced wheels, however, I bought 2 spare wheels from two different forum members, both wheels were off '94 cars, and both are non-reinforced versions. Go figure. :scratch:

Here's a thought. It could be that some of these seemingly factory original rims may have been replaced under warranty for hairline cracks. Not saying it has happened, but it could have.

Also, it could be that the original position of the rims for new car buyers might have been two on the front, two on the rear to split the difference. But then we rotate the rims, so the original position is not known.

Tim

With all this cracking rim stuff I haven't heard of many people with rims that cracked in the past few years. The cracking stuff seems to mainly based on rims that cracked when the cars were newer.

Personally the only rims I've seen that are cracked are the "new" style.

Hmmm, maybe there was a flaw in some of the castings. The ones that broke, broke early and the ones left today did not have the casting flaw???

BTW, I have 93 rims...i better not run slicks on them around a track other than autox.

Good info on different design wheels and cracks.

Ran across the subject by accident.

It would be nice to have a good clear print of the picutres of the difference in the wheels so can print it and save it off with the manuals and stuff for future reference.

My car has a build date of 1/92 and most of the rims were cast in 12/91 and they don't have any cracks. They have held up to several seasons of autocrossing too.

I have a 93 touring. According to fdnewbie's pic, im thinking that the wheel on the right... is the re-inforced one. Correct me if i'm wrong because i don't really know which one is the re-inforced one. But i'm working on my brakes right now so i decided to go downstairs and see if my wheels are the re-inforced type or not. And my wheel looks like the wheel in the right of the picture. Does that mean my wheel is re-inforced? And yet a 93' not a 94'?

Just flip them over and inspect them each time you have a wheel off. Make sure you wipe the brake dust away so you can really see them.

Benefit is that these are lighter than the other version, and they've lasted this long without problems.

Dave

anyone got an answer for my question?

Yes, the one on the right is the reinforced version.

Dave