Fonz0

I have a 1987 Carrera 3.2 with BBS wheels and one of my rear Lug nuts has vanished (while driving ) As it is a generally accepted rule that having wheels stay on one's car while driving is better than the alternative, I am unsure of what lug nuts to buy. Porsche sells theirs for $19 per piece. OEM are much less. GMP has a set of 10 for $40. Can anyone out there make a real case for using Porsche versus OEM or Aftermarket? One mechanic I spoke to always says use Porsche parts (and he is not a factory mechanic). Thanks....

theiceman

if you need only one drop the 19 bucks and be done and on your way. anything else you may have to pay to ship to get it anyway .. some things arent worth the agro .. now if you were to buy a set of 20 .. now that might take a bit more consideration.

Fonz0

The ones on the car are silver and the Porsche ones are black. Plus since they were all torqued properly and one failed, I would feel better buying all new. So I was looking at 20...

theiceman

ohh.......

I bought a bunch of old Porsche ones at a swap meet. and spray painted them.

rusnak

Wow, are they really that much? I bought a set of 20 around 10 years ago, and I think they were half that. Jeez. I agree....do not buy aftermarket lug nuts. Porsche is better.

ron mcatee

fonzo, what ever lug nuts you use, make sure the bottom of the nut sets firmly in the rounded cavity of the wheel. The BBS wheels I used years ago required a different lug nut from the OEM Porsche lug huts. They weren't as rounded as the OEM ones.

race911

In 30+ years with these things, I've never seen a properly torqued, unmolested lug nut vanish--OE (steel or alloy) or aftermarket.

However, I'm confused in the initial post there's reference to "vanish", and in the other thread is says "failed". I HAVE seen failures. Can only imagine there were overtorquing issues at some point.

As far as the BBS referenced above, some used a special BBS lug with a shoulder washer. But that was pretty much '80s BBS Racing stuff.

Fonz0

I honestly don't know. I used the term "failed" because if a lug nut falls off to me that is a failure. However, I understand the distinction. I have looked at the rear passenger wheel and do not see any evidence of a shear or "failure" and I even removed another lug nut to see if there was any discernible difference (there wasn't to my eye). I have replaced the missing nut with a Porsche factory black one torqued to 96 ft lbs and will be bringing the car into the shop to have someone more qualified than I am look it over. I do not want to lose a wheel or more lug nuts.

ECS Tuning

A set of steel lug nuts from H&R should provide all of the security you would ever need, even at the track. Of course, if you would like to get a set of OEM alloy lug nuts, we have them at a much more cost effective rate than 19 each!

For more information, click here

race911

Any personal experience of a failed factory alloy lug nut on track?

(Don't get into the red herring of what Club Racing requires--that mandate was purely to allow quick identification of full lug engagement, something we were having a problem with across the board with widebody conversions and too-large spacers relative to stud length.)

Anyone still make open alloy lugs? Not sure where they were sourced from, but I sold a lot of them in the '80s-'90s.

Caferacer

Is this vehicle parked on the street at night? I wonder if some unscrupulous individual did some midnight shopping.

ECS Tuning

The factory alloy units may not suffer from catastrophic failure, but I have personally seen several instances of threads stripping due to over torquing. Some of these alloy nuts are over 40 years old, and who knows what previous owners have done to them. I simply like the peace of mind of new lug nuts, be they alloy or steel.

race911

Right. There's a life expectancy in any of the fasteners. I think in my first reply I mentioned fatigue from overtorquing. No way you can even know after the first wheel has been removed what's been done.

But I've never seen an non-abused factory alloy lug fail. The aftermarket stuff that populated the planet 20+ years ago? No idea.

wildcat077

For what it's worth,Sierra Madre sells the open steel version of our 3.2 911 lug nuts for something like $60.00 dollars a set of 20 ...
I'm considering a set of steel lug nuts for the track myself !

I'm not keen on the idea of having four unknowns at the daily morning techs going away at my lugnuts with four different brand torque wrenches !

Cheers !
Phil

Fonz0

It is not parked on the street at night. I suppose someone at work could have stolen one, but I find that unlikely. Thanks for the Sierra Madre referral!