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2Addicts | BMW 2-Series forum Technical Topics Tracking / Autocrossing Wheel Lug Bolts are a wear item

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      10-10-2019, 02:29 PM   #1
Maynard
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Wheel Lug Bolts are a wear item

Passing along a warning from the last HPDE I attended. They recently had somebody who lost a wheel from lug bolt failure (on track - OUCH), and the techs were reminding us of something that wasn't really news to me, but not something I see mentioned often. Wheel lug bolts are being stretched each time they are torqued, and they will eventually fail; Tracking leads to a whole lot more of this than the factories plan for, and the damage is greatly magnified if you've had a gun-monkey put your wheels on with too much torque. They are recommending replacement every 2-3 years (I think this is similar to what they suggest for wheel studs too). And if nothing else, it makes for a great excuse to replace those junky looking lugs with nice new ones that match the wheels.
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      10-10-2019, 02:36 PM   #2
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That really is interesting.
When they fail do the heads pop off ?
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      10-10-2019, 04:00 PM   #3
Maynard
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I didn't get that much detail. They said that the bolts sheared off, but I DK if they lost the heads, or sheared off at the hub surface. I suspect that the first one would fail in it's own way, based upon the stretch-fatigue; then the remaining ones would be affected by the increased load and movement, so they would potentially have a very different pattern.
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      10-11-2019, 09:12 PM   #4
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Yes, bolts and studs definitely are wear items. I've had a few individual studs snap, but usually caught them on time. This summer, I didn't and had a wheel detach going ~90 through T9 at Big Willow. Actually got pretty lucky that it snapped close to the apex with most of the direction change done:



I've asked the local race shops around after this and most of the mounting hardware advice boils down to:
- replace them. I've heard every 25-30 track days, maybe more often if you do lots of wheel changes;
- if a single one snaps, replace all of them on that corner;
- check your torque wrench, 20-30% errors are apparently not uncommon on cheap ones;
- don't torque them when the hub is hot;
- don't click the wrench multiple times "just to make sure".

Anyway, I got away just a bunch of front suspension and bodywork damage. Which was a convenient excuse for some Very Wide changes:
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      10-13-2019, 07:13 PM   #5
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OEM bolts aren't designed for the heat and stress of track duty. My take is that this is the sort of hardware to run if you're planning on going to the track with any regularity: https://www.bimmerworld.com/BimmerWo...d-Package.html.

I ran a set of Bimmerworld's studs and nuts on a car of mine for ~75 events and had no issues. They were still on the car when I sold it four years after the studs and nuts went on it.

Due to the initial change at each event from rollers to race tires, a 6-heat cycle tire life, occasionally switching from dry tires to rain tires, rare mistakes made by the mechanic that would render a tire unusable, and the change back from race tires to rollers before the car went into the trailer, that car tended to have 3-6 wheel changes per event. The rollers also came off at the shop after each event and went back on before loading-up to return to the track. The studs and nuts worked flawlessly for hundreds of wheel changes.

I changed my bolts out for studs and nuts as part of the initial build of my M240i and wouldn't have gone to the track without them - if only for the convenience.
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Last edited by dradernh; 10-14-2019 at 05:17 PM..
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      10-14-2019, 09:59 AM   #6
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Yes, wheel studs are already on my Xmas list. Good to know they have that kind of service life.
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      10-29-2019, 01:11 AM   #7
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Hey msendit what widebody is that?
Looks rad
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      10-29-2019, 08:35 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lil_Katsu View Post
Hey msendit what widebody is that?
Looks rad
Thanks!
It's an M235iR kit (replica? not completely sure, I got it from Flossman who I hear are an OEM supplier of some parts).
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      11-25-2019, 03:47 AM   #9
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Couple guys posted lots of good info

I personally have had great luck with the apex steel kit.

I did some ti stud conv kit testing for a company this race season, and when torqued properly. They would stretch and pull the threads to the point that at the end of a race day (4 or 5 qual, 1x max attack, and a finals round) the studs had to be....let’s say needed a bit of help to come off.
Like a torch and sometimes cutting wheel lol

Long story short.
We switched to the apex steel stud kit.
While it may weigh a lil bit more.
For now seems to be problem free and much more reliable.
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      11-25-2019, 08:25 AM   #10
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Aftermarket stud kits are likely more problematic than any factory lug bolt. People also run small spacers without extended lugs and that can cause problems too.
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      01-03-2020, 04:42 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TYC View Post

Long story short.
We switched to the apex steel stud kit.
While it may weigh a lil bit more.
For now seems to be problem free and much more reliable.
Good to hear our kit is working out! These kits are definitely wear items. We generally recommend that you replace our stud kits every 2 years for normal track use. If a car is heavily tracked, It's wise to push that interval up to 1 year.

-Tom
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      01-31-2020, 06:02 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Expert@ApexRaceParts View Post
Good to hear our kit is working out! These kits are definitely wear items. We generally recommend that you replace our stud kits every 2 years for normal track use. If a car is heavily tracked, It's wise to push that interval up to 1 year.

-Tom
Thanks Tom!
Very happy, no issues so far.
Would be nice if you had some color options
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      02-04-2020, 10:17 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TYC View Post
Thanks Tom!
Very happy, no issues so far.
Would be nice if you had some color options
I ran the Apex studs this year for about 10 km, 3 track days for this past year and everything seems great so far.

Maybe see ya around at one of the Mosport/Cayuga/Shannonville/Calabogie/Temblant events?

D
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      02-04-2020, 09:40 PM   #14
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To offer a different viewpoint, the studs I had snap on me in that Big Willow post were apex. On 20-25 track-hours, maybe 40 or so torque cycles. That seems within reasonable spec for parts marketed as "race". I've had 4-5 other Apex studs snap with less use. So understandably, I wouldn't recommend them if you track often.

Since that incident, I'm closing in 20 track-hours on a set of Bimmerworld race studs. Fewer wheel chamges, so not apples-to-apples, but no drama so far. I'll probably swap them around 25 hours.

Last edited by msendit; 02-04-2020 at 11:20 PM..
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      03-02-2020, 09:18 PM   #15
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If you really want to run studs maybe see if these guys will make some for our platform.
I run his press in studs on my e36.
https://www.core4motorsports.com/pro...hub-conversion
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      03-03-2020, 02:29 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nugget View Post
If you really want to run studs maybe see if these guys will make some for our platform.
I run his press in studs on my e36.
https://www.core4motorsports.com/pro...hub-conversion
Tom from Core4 Motorsports here. Thanks for sharing our solution! We actually have done a couple of E8x cars already so it's not a problem at all.

HQ Autosport in California runs our hubs on their NASA E2 class E82 endurance race car that they campaign in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill and the Western Endurance Racing Championship (WERC). The E8x shares a similar flanged front bearing/hub as the E9x cars and the rear hubs on BMW's from E36 through F8x are essentially the same design.


If you interested or have any questions at all, please feel free to email me at info@core4motorsports.com or ask questions in here. You can find some info on the website as well. I've done quite a bit of research and testing regarding this seemingly trivial topic that can get quite long winded.

I've also gone into detail over quite a few things in the E9x M3 forum here: https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1690683
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      03-10-2020, 05:02 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gills View Post
...
If you interested or have any questions at all, please feel free to email me at info@core4motorsports.com or ask questions in here. You can find some info on the website as well. I've done quite a bit of research and testing regarding this seemingly trivial topic that can get quite long winded.

I've also gone into detail over quite a few things in the E9x M3 forum here: https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1690683
Tom, really appreciated the technical detail, here and in those other posts. Am I understanding it correctly that, given similar grade, a factory-stock style lug bolt would be less failure-prone than a screw-in stud?
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      03-11-2020, 12:59 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maynard View Post
Tom, really appreciated the technical detail, here and in those other posts. Am I understanding it correctly that, given similar grade, a factory-stock style lug bolt would be less failure-prone than a screw-in stud?
That is correct. The fact that the threads run down the entire length of the wheel bolt with no interruptions in the thread itself, eliminates the stress riser of threaded-unthreaded transition regions that are inherent in screw-in studs.
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