Help APEX Create a Better Porsche Track Wheel
#1
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Help APEX Create a Better Porsche Track Wheel
Calling Porsche Track Enthusiasts!
Eric from APEX Race Parts here. (Don’t worry, I’m not just another internet sales guy - I’m actually leading APEX’s Porsche wheel development.)
For those of you who know us from our roots in the BMW world, you know that we develop our performance wheels based on real world experiences and feedback from go-fast enthusiasts. (You!) We’ve been flooded with requests to develop some Porsche-specific wheels and now we have the team in place to make it happen! We’ve got a few fitment ideas in mind, but we really want to pick your brain before we pull the trigger. Got a few minutes to help us out?
[Give us your 2 cents]
Once we get a better understanding of your deepest wishes and desires for an affordable (yet race-proven) set of shoes for your car, we’ll put our creative and engineerings minds to work to develop a lineup of APEX wheels that makes sense whether you’re in the market for street or track-worthy wheels.
So, who am I? Well, many things, but the important thing is that I’ve been neck-deep in the performance driving world for years - HDPE’ing and Time Trialing my Porsche around the Northern California tracks every opportunity that I get. If you’re like me and have spent time in the paddock, you’ve surely seen the majority of BMWs on a set of APEX wheels. Over the past 10 years, it was obvious that APEX dedicated themselves to fill voids and ease pains the BMW enthusiasts felt in regards to wheel quality, affordability, and availability. By enlisting fellow enthusiasts in the decision making process, APEX incorporated forum members into product development and connected with their community in a way that no one else in the motorsports world had. Hungry to implement that in other track oriented markets, I proposed the idea of a Porsche department to APEX, and voila! That’s why I’m reaching out to you now.
Now that we’re all gearing up for the off-season builds, repairs, and modifications, I speak for the whole team when I say that we’re ecstatic to get the wheels rolling (pun intended) on developing off-the-shelf, race engineered, lightweight fitments that are perfect for your beloved Porsche.
The best way to help would be to tell us a bit more about what you’d look for and expect in a set of track proven, dependable, and affordable wheels. When you grab your next cup of coffee, could you take a minute to share your thoughts with us?
[Take our Porsche Wheel Survey]
Please stay tuned and we will surely keep you updated as our Porsche division progresses!
Happy tracking,
Eric
11/27 UPDATE:
Shown below are our 18" APEX SM-10 in profile 1 (front) concavity and profile 2 (rear) concavity.
Satin black -
Anthracite -
Hyper Silver -
Eric from APEX Race Parts here. (Don’t worry, I’m not just another internet sales guy - I’m actually leading APEX’s Porsche wheel development.)
For those of you who know us from our roots in the BMW world, you know that we develop our performance wheels based on real world experiences and feedback from go-fast enthusiasts. (You!) We’ve been flooded with requests to develop some Porsche-specific wheels and now we have the team in place to make it happen! We’ve got a few fitment ideas in mind, but we really want to pick your brain before we pull the trigger. Got a few minutes to help us out?
[Give us your 2 cents]
Once we get a better understanding of your deepest wishes and desires for an affordable (yet race-proven) set of shoes for your car, we’ll put our creative and engineerings minds to work to develop a lineup of APEX wheels that makes sense whether you’re in the market for street or track-worthy wheels.
So, who am I? Well, many things, but the important thing is that I’ve been neck-deep in the performance driving world for years - HDPE’ing and Time Trialing my Porsche around the Northern California tracks every opportunity that I get. If you’re like me and have spent time in the paddock, you’ve surely seen the majority of BMWs on a set of APEX wheels. Over the past 10 years, it was obvious that APEX dedicated themselves to fill voids and ease pains the BMW enthusiasts felt in regards to wheel quality, affordability, and availability. By enlisting fellow enthusiasts in the decision making process, APEX incorporated forum members into product development and connected with their community in a way that no one else in the motorsports world had. Hungry to implement that in other track oriented markets, I proposed the idea of a Porsche department to APEX, and voila! That’s why I’m reaching out to you now.
Now that we’re all gearing up for the off-season builds, repairs, and modifications, I speak for the whole team when I say that we’re ecstatic to get the wheels rolling (pun intended) on developing off-the-shelf, race engineered, lightweight fitments that are perfect for your beloved Porsche.
The best way to help would be to tell us a bit more about what you’d look for and expect in a set of track proven, dependable, and affordable wheels. When you grab your next cup of coffee, could you take a minute to share your thoughts with us?
[Take our Porsche Wheel Survey]
Please stay tuned and we will surely keep you updated as our Porsche division progresses!
Happy tracking,
Eric
11/27 UPDATE:
Shown below are our 18" APEX SM-10 in profile 1 (front) concavity and profile 2 (rear) concavity.
Satin black -
Anthracite -
Hyper Silver -
__________________
APEX Wheels - expert@apexwheels.com
Website - Blog - Instagram - Porsche Fitment Guides
APEX Wheels - expert@apexwheels.com
Website - Blog - Instagram - Porsche Fitment Guides
Last edited by Apex Wheels; 11-27-2017 at 08:24 PM.
#2
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Excuse my tardiness to this subsection --- a lot more 944/951 owners are participating in the survey than I had anticipated.
Please share your thoughts and wheel preferences as the survey results are a direct reflection of what will be brought to the Porsche community!
Please share your thoughts and wheel preferences as the survey results are a direct reflection of what will be brought to the Porsche community!
#4
I think you might get a lot of questions, such as..
What is the construction type? Are they cast or forged? Gravity cast, pressure cast. Billet forged, 3D forged, etc.
Are they single piece? Or two piece welded?
What is the material? Aluminum alloy? Magnesium alloy? What grade?
Where are they made?
Do they have any certification?
They are already made. Contact 928 Classics or Rotiform.
If the OP is talking about a track wheel, the priority of said wheel design should be strength and lightness. Replicating an old style should not be a priority IMO.
What is the construction type? Are they cast or forged? Gravity cast, pressure cast. Billet forged, 3D forged, etc.
Are they single piece? Or two piece welded?
What is the material? Aluminum alloy? Magnesium alloy? What grade?
Where are they made?
Do they have any certification?
They are already made. Contact 928 Classics or Rotiform.
If the OP is talking about a track wheel, the priority of said wheel design should be strength and lightness. Replicating an old style should not be a priority IMO.
#6
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Very timely. Racers like me are having a problem with wheels. Only a few options in 15"x 9".ET 35 Thats the preferred wheel in SP-2. Only options are Jongbloed cast (very prone to cracking) or widening stock wheels. Some are using 8" Fuchs but the 245 R-7's are a bit stretched. Last option is custom forged. Best price i found is $2,500. Not to bad, but if we had a lower cost forged option I think we would be buying.
#7
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I think you might get a lot of questions, such as..
What is the construction type? Are they cast or forged? Gravity cast, pressure cast. Billet forged, 3D forged, etc.
Are they single piece? Or two piece welded?
What is the material? Aluminum alloy? Magnesium alloy? What grade?
Where are they made?
Do they have any certification?
They are already made. Contact 928 Classics or Rotiform.
If the OP is talking about a track wheel, the priority of said wheel design should be strength and lightness. Replicating an old style should not be a priority IMO.
What is the construction type? Are they cast or forged? Gravity cast, pressure cast. Billet forged, 3D forged, etc.
Are they single piece? Or two piece welded?
What is the material? Aluminum alloy? Magnesium alloy? What grade?
Where are they made?
Do they have any certification?
They are already made. Contact 928 Classics or Rotiform.
If the OP is talking about a track wheel, the priority of said wheel design should be strength and lightness. Replicating an old style should not be a priority IMO.
I would add that while there is nothing wrong with the appearance of these wheels, they do look like any number of similar wheels out there and many of them are a Chinese cast wheel that I wouldn't risk at the track. Of course these may not be same but worth the question. So ultimately how can you make yours more attractive to potential customers? Price, weight, manufacturing process...???
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#8
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All good questions. We answered a lot of these on some other forums so I'll copy paste a few of our previous responses below.
Our wheels are one-piece, aluminum with Flow-Formed (rotary forged) barrels. The aluminum is A356.2 with a T6 heat treatment. The flow-forming improves the strength of the barrel so the yields are more like a fully forged wheel.
Here's a response to someone asking us to prove we're VIA/JWL certified:
They are made in China, which we discussed below in another thread.
You can find some fellow enthusiasts who have run APEX wheels in the past chime in on other Porsche related Rennlist threads here:
Thank you all for your inquiries. Feel free to reach out with anything else.
Our wheels are one-piece, aluminum with Flow-Formed (rotary forged) barrels. The aluminum is A356.2 with a T6 heat treatment. The flow-forming improves the strength of the barrel so the yields are more like a fully forged wheel.
Here's a response to someone asking us to prove we're VIA/JWL certified:
We understand where you’re coming from. It’s all talk until there is some proof to back up our claims. We’re sickened by the number of companies claiming they’re VIA/JWL certified when in fact they are not, so we always welcome a discussion on the matter. We encourage enthusiasts to do their due-diligence before making an educated wheel purchase as we’re all aware of the failures that can happen.
Posting a video doesn’t prove anything as we’ve seen them already from other manufacturers that lie about their certification(s). Each factory has the equipment in-house to conduct tests, but it doesn’t mean everything is tested or tested to the same standards as what the VIA requires. To us, in-house testing is just like taking a practice SAT test. The only score a college will care about is the officially sanctioned test you took, not the one you did at home on your own. These in-house tests and videos are conducted without regulation, subject to false load quantities, and used solely for marketing purposes. This is where the catastrophic on-track failures occur and the biggest differences start to reveal themselves in the wheel industry.
The VIA in Japan runs the JWL test and there is only one way to conduct that test so a manufacturer can’t game the system. SAE J2530 testing conducted in the USA by some manufacturers can be manipulated. We got into a spat with a competitor many years ago that claimed JWL/VIA/TUV certification. They only did SAE testing and that test allows them to pick any load rating to certify. That brand only tested to 1200lbs when VIA requires 690KG (1521lbs) for the 5x120 bolt pattern. A trend we see lately is brands that use tricky terminology such as “exceeds JWL/VIA”. Translated, that means they have no third party official evidence of anything, they want you to trust that they conducted a legitimate in-house test, and for some good reason they decided not to take that last step.
So how do you know we’re the real deal? There’s two ways to check. One way is online. The VIA maintains a list of every single manufacturer, wheel model, and size that has been certified. Unfortunately, they require a login to view that list which we find odd as we believe that should be a public database. The other way is by looking at the certified test reports that are mailed to them by the VIA.
Although we don’t have a video of the test being run, we noticed the older reports did include a photograph of our wheel in an impact test machine which we’ve attached below. The new reports just include a photo of the wheel on the ground which is not as interesting.
The only things we’ve hidden in these images is our source’s name.
Posting a video doesn’t prove anything as we’ve seen them already from other manufacturers that lie about their certification(s). Each factory has the equipment in-house to conduct tests, but it doesn’t mean everything is tested or tested to the same standards as what the VIA requires. To us, in-house testing is just like taking a practice SAT test. The only score a college will care about is the officially sanctioned test you took, not the one you did at home on your own. These in-house tests and videos are conducted without regulation, subject to false load quantities, and used solely for marketing purposes. This is where the catastrophic on-track failures occur and the biggest differences start to reveal themselves in the wheel industry.
The VIA in Japan runs the JWL test and there is only one way to conduct that test so a manufacturer can’t game the system. SAE J2530 testing conducted in the USA by some manufacturers can be manipulated. We got into a spat with a competitor many years ago that claimed JWL/VIA/TUV certification. They only did SAE testing and that test allows them to pick any load rating to certify. That brand only tested to 1200lbs when VIA requires 690KG (1521lbs) for the 5x120 bolt pattern. A trend we see lately is brands that use tricky terminology such as “exceeds JWL/VIA”. Translated, that means they have no third party official evidence of anything, they want you to trust that they conducted a legitimate in-house test, and for some good reason they decided not to take that last step.
So how do you know we’re the real deal? There’s two ways to check. One way is online. The VIA maintains a list of every single manufacturer, wheel model, and size that has been certified. Unfortunately, they require a login to view that list which we find odd as we believe that should be a public database. The other way is by looking at the certified test reports that are mailed to them by the VIA.
Although we don’t have a video of the test being run, we noticed the older reports did include a photograph of our wheel in an impact test machine which we’ve attached below. The new reports just include a photo of the wheel on the ground which is not as interesting.
The only things we’ve hidden in these images is our source’s name.
They are made in China, which we discussed below in another thread.
We’ve been in business for 10 years, and we’ve stuck with one supplier in China. We chose them because they already had the equipment to Flow-Form which was rare back then, and their primary customers were big OEMs and other Japanese wheel manufacturers. What’s kept our relationship strong has been their willingness to further increase their QA standards at our request, and to support our extensive crush testing despite our low production volumes.
I can’t speak with any certainty on where another wheel is manufactured, but if they have a history of being soft and low quality, then it’s almost certainly not from our supplier as we’re definitely paying a premium to get the quality we require. As flow-forming became popular, a lot of other manufacturers have popped up offering similar services. If a vendor doesn’t come to a supplier with any of their own standards, and they’re just looking for a wheel, then there are a lot of suppliers out there now that are happy to cater to vendors just looking for another thing to sell.
For anything manufactured overseas, real world testing and independent checks are required to ensure you get quality out of a supplier. Done right, you get an iphone. Done wrong, you get exploding hoverboards. This is where the biggest differences start to reveal themselves in the wheel industry. It’s clear that most brands don’t even understand how to keep their suppliers in check as they’ll claim JWL and VIA on product that clearly haven’t been tested. We can tell they’re misrepresenting their products because there is a database that contains all the supplier names, wheel models, and test related data for every wheels that’s ever been certified by the VIA. Most wheels aren’t on that list as they’ve never been tested. Some vendors are novices that and assume they’re tested or they work with suppliers that tell them they’re tested, while others purposefully skip it to save costs. Both make you really worry about what other corners are being cut or missed.
After multiple computer revisions and FEA, we run real world impact, load, and crush tests for every unique wheel spec. Even if the offset change is only 1mm different on a new size, we still do the tests. Since all of this testing is done in-house, we need to keep our supplier in check. When they’re done we send wheels to the VIA in Japan which is a government testing organization. They real world crush test our wheels again and provide 3rd party validation that corners aren’t being cut.
This thorough testing gives us the confidence that we’re producing quality product that’s worthy of being driven at the limits on track. The last 10 years of customers beating on our wheels is proof that we’ve accomplished just that.
I can’t speak with any certainty on where another wheel is manufactured, but if they have a history of being soft and low quality, then it’s almost certainly not from our supplier as we’re definitely paying a premium to get the quality we require. As flow-forming became popular, a lot of other manufacturers have popped up offering similar services. If a vendor doesn’t come to a supplier with any of their own standards, and they’re just looking for a wheel, then there are a lot of suppliers out there now that are happy to cater to vendors just looking for another thing to sell.
For anything manufactured overseas, real world testing and independent checks are required to ensure you get quality out of a supplier. Done right, you get an iphone. Done wrong, you get exploding hoverboards. This is where the biggest differences start to reveal themselves in the wheel industry. It’s clear that most brands don’t even understand how to keep their suppliers in check as they’ll claim JWL and VIA on product that clearly haven’t been tested. We can tell they’re misrepresenting their products because there is a database that contains all the supplier names, wheel models, and test related data for every wheels that’s ever been certified by the VIA. Most wheels aren’t on that list as they’ve never been tested. Some vendors are novices that and assume they’re tested or they work with suppliers that tell them they’re tested, while others purposefully skip it to save costs. Both make you really worry about what other corners are being cut or missed.
After multiple computer revisions and FEA, we run real world impact, load, and crush tests for every unique wheel spec. Even if the offset change is only 1mm different on a new size, we still do the tests. Since all of this testing is done in-house, we need to keep our supplier in check. When they’re done we send wheels to the VIA in Japan which is a government testing organization. They real world crush test our wheels again and provide 3rd party validation that corners aren’t being cut.
This thorough testing gives us the confidence that we’re producing quality product that’s worthy of being driven at the limits on track. The last 10 years of customers beating on our wheels is proof that we’ve accomplished just that.
I run Apex EC-7's on my e92 m3 track car and love them. Great price, quality, offset options, and big brake fitment. Wish these were an option for my 997.2 when I had it.
I don't have a porsche at the moment but I would say focus on 18" wheels if that is a possibility. Opens the door to so many additional track tire options that aren't necessarily made in 19 or 20-inch sizes.
I don't have a porsche at the moment but I would say focus on 18" wheels if that is a possibility. Opens the door to so many additional track tire options that aren't necessarily made in 19 or 20-inch sizes.
#10
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So looking at the survey it is clear you just want to make big heavy wheels for the racer looking street cars. I thought you were pursuing the racing wheel market. For example 15"X9" 12lbs.
#11
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We've delivered track-worthy wheels at an affordable price for 10+ years now, and see no reason to change an already very successful recipe.
Thank you for your inquiry.
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As our Porsche wheel development is chugging along at a fast pace, please note that the survey is still up and running. If you haven't already, please take 5 minutes to share your preferences!
#13
Race Car
You are missing the potential to sell a fair amount of wheels.
The choices for the 944s are slim pickings but you won't find the information you are looking for with a survey on a site where the feedback is for 18 and 19" wheels for street cars with show brakes, you'll find it at race tracks every weekend where 15 and 16" wheels are on 90% of the 944 cars.
T
#14
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Probably does......, just not 944 race cars.
You are missing the potential to sell a fair amount of wheels.
The choices for the 944s are slim pickings but you won't find the information you are looking for with a survey on a site where the feedback is for 18 and 19" wheels for street cars with show brakes, you'll find it at race tracks every weekend where 15 and 16" wheels are on 90% of the 944 cars.
T
You are missing the potential to sell a fair amount of wheels.
The choices for the 944s are slim pickings but you won't find the information you are looking for with a survey on a site where the feedback is for 18 and 19" wheels for street cars with show brakes, you'll find it at race tracks every weekend where 15 and 16" wheels are on 90% of the 944 cars.
T
Many thanks for your insight.
#15
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Thank you to the 700+ fellow enthusiasts who have participated in our survey. It is still live and we're continually welcoming feedback well into our development stages. It directly impacts what we produce and when, so please share your preferences.
I'll have exciting news in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Thanks all.
I'll have exciting news in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Thanks all.