I have ZR1 replica wheels on my camaro 17x9.5 front and 17x11 rer with the 4th gen offset. At the time when I put my wheels on, I could only find a set of acorn style lugnuts to use with the wheels. They look like this...



Are these the correct lugnuts to be using? I haven't really noticed anything until now, but when I get the car above 60 MPH there is a decent drone/vibration. I thought it was coming from the aftermarket suspension stuff at first ie LCA's torque arm etc, but now I am starting to question the lugs. Is it ok to use those??

 

are they loose after going 60 or above?

 

Do the wheels have a conical seat on them? If so then you are fine. What about hub centric rings?

 

tpx: no the lugnuts have never come loose on me ever.

BMR Sales: By concial seat do you mean where the lugnuts go in at or on the hub? I would have to take a look at the wheels again and find out. I just don't like how the wheel looks when I am tightening the lugnuts down. I put them all on finger tight and use my 1/2 inch impact gun on the lowest setting (80 ft lbs) to run them down. When I do that the wheel kinda *walks* its way onto the hub. The hub opening of the wheel is the correct size so it's not like I'm forcing the wheel on. If I just put the wheels up and hold it to the hub it will sit flat against it. It's almost as if these wheels were hubcentric and needed some kinda of a ring like you said, but I thought that these direct fit wheels where lugcentric? Wonder if I should try to find some factory style lugnuts to use and see what they do?

 

considering what bmr sales said, it looks like a likely candidate is wheel balancing. Out of balance tires/wheels can cause vibrations at certain speeds, mostly in the 50-70 range and your 60mph is smack in the middle. It's something to consider.

 

Do the lugnuts look exactly like that or is that just a stock photo you found? The reason I'm asking is that photo shows 7/16" lugnuts and unless you're replaced the wheel studs, you should be using 12mm lugnuts.

Swapping to a different rim shouldn't cause a problem as you've described. If the tires are all balanced, I'd suggest getting the driveshaft balanced.

One way to isolate the tires is to try a different set and see if there's still a vibration.

 

Stephen 87 IROC: That picture is just a photo that I found on the net to show what kind of tapered seat the lugnuts that I was using have. The driveshaft is a brand new Denny's 3 inch steel nitrous driveshaft and 1350 u joint, so I don't think it is from that. I can try to rebalance the rear tires and see if anything gets better. I definitely know that it is coming from the rear because I can drive up to 60-65 MPH, get the drone/vibration to happen, and then put the car in neutral/push the clutch in and it's still there. Maybe it has to do with a combination of all of my spohn suspension with poly bushings. Combined with the spohn torque arm and the transmission crossmember that it attaches to, maybe it's allowing more vibrations to reach the passenger compartment?

 

Just that the taper thats on the lug nuts is the same taper thats on the wheel where they both seat.

Well as long as the wheels are lugcentric and the seats match then the problem is somewhere else. I had a set of wheels that "looked" ok, balanced out on the machine but when I got up to 60 or 70 I would get this vibration that would come and go. Put a brand new set of wheels on and the vibration went away. You never know sometimes with older wheels

 

Im still looking but let me wake this from the dead and c if anything was ever done to fix the vibration and if so what was it that did fix it????

 

Actually, it's funny that you should ask. About 2 months ago, I decided to swap my transmission out from the factory WC T5 to a built 700R4. Guess what? No more vibration. When I pulled the 5 speed out, the input shaft had a ton of play in it. Seems like the input shaft bearing was going bad. When you wobbled the input shaft up and down, you could feel the wobble in the output shaft as well. Probably one of the reasons why my tailshaft seal was always leaking even with new seals put in.

 

Okay thanks for getting back to me. My car is doing the same crap but im showing like 4k on the trans rebuild so I hope its not that, but u never know. The shaking could that have something to do with the aftermarket wheels needing hub centric rings? The lugs mate up the the wheels fine but could the studs be flexing at all causing some of the vibration?

I already know that wal-mart probably didn't balance them right. Walmart sucks, cause they offer a service, or item for cheaper then anyone else, and u get it but its always halfassed. They wont even touch your tires at the one I go to if the tire is not the same size as whats on the door sticker, or if the wheels r after market. I have a set of American Racing, & had to take them off to get them to balance the them. BS.

 

It's possible that they are out of balance. Luckily, I am a technician and work at a Lexus dealership and I have access to some good equipment. We have one of the top of the line Hunter road force balancers and my wheels are all balanced to within 3 grams. Another thing that gets overlooked with tires is radial runout. Basically, no tire is perfectly round, they are all elliptical or egg shaped. A balancer that has the ability to measure road force variation is your friend. You can have 4 tires that are all balanced perfect, but if the tires have a ton of runout, the car will want to hop down the road. At higher vehicle speeds, this hop directly equates into a vibration. Next time you have your tires balanced, ask them if they can use their machine to measure the road force on the tires. Some machines measure it in pounds and some in decimal form. For passenger cars you want less than 10 pounds or .013 runout. Have them take the higest runout tire and place it on the right rear, next worse on the drivers rear, next worse passenger front and the best tire driver front. With the higest runout tires in the rear, some of the vibration will be absorbed in the chassis, transmitting less of that vibration to you, the driver.

 

Real good info. I was a walmart service mgr before I started as a diesel tech. Makes me want to set the people down, and make them let me do the work. I went to walmart the other day and wanted a valve stem replaced. They put the stem on, balanced the tire, charging me for all of it and for fixing a flat? So I mad the dude take the stem out and bought one. Then I get the wheel home and find that the a-hole dropped the stem in the tire. What a jerk.