jrgatfh

Hey Guys,

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving.

I’m looking to do a bunch of things to the car over the winter and one of them is biting the bullet and finally upgrading the wheels. What’s the general consensus on RH vs Kerscher? Which wheels are more accurate clones? better quality? Etc. etc. I’ve tri’ed doing some research and couldn’t find anything definitive.

RH’s website shows the wheels in 2-piece and 3-piece as well.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

BTR3.4

I have RH 3.6 Germany wheels on my 965 Turbo, I think the wheels are better looking and are lighter then the Speedlines. Regarding the Kerscher d'ont know anything about them. Hope this helps. Best of luck to you. The
upgrades to 18' are well worth it.

jrgatfh

I can’t wait they’re beautiful wheels. I’m leaning towards RH just because they seem to be the more popular choice.

I want to have the centers polished. I contacted RH and unfortunately due to German regulations they said they’re not allowed to sell them fully polished but are willing to ship the wheels disassembled so it’s a little less work to have someone refinish them locally.

cobalt

The polished speedlines are actually not polished but painted with a chrome type paint AFAIK. The RH are the closest looking to the speedlines. The differences are the bolts and the higher polish of the RH's. Nice thing about the RH's is you can get offsets that look more aggressive than the speedline which you are stuck with just the two sizes. I rarely see a speedline bend but they do, although I know a lot of people with RH's which have thinner lips and barrels and lips can bend more easily.

jim dorociak

Polished 3.6 Speedlines are not painted. I am not sure exactly how they are polished, but they are. The centers themselves have the casting texture still present and that is part of the reason they do not shine brighter and then the entire assembled wheel is clear powder coated.

To replicate the polished look of a 3.6 Turbo Speedline center is very hard and expensive to pull off. First you have to completely strip all the metallic silver powder coating off the complete center (front and back). Now this is where most of the very hard work begins. You need to be careful not to scratch the surface, hope that no major imperfections are present in the castings. When I have in the past done polish centers on RH wheels I do find imperfections present in the castings requiring me to completely sand the face smooth and to a high polish look and then tone down the high polish surface by tumbling the center.

Next part of the work needed is some type of clear coat that protects the surface and maintains with minimal effort on your part. You then need to secure some metal center caps and get them done at the same time so they match the centers. If it were me I would pick the RH 3 piece wheels over the one piece Kerscher wheels.

Now the best wheel are the 3.6 Speedline wheels, and if placed next to either of the other options the Speedline will always be easily identified as every aspect of the shape is correct on the Speedline, but these wheels are not cheap.

Jim

cobalt

Interesting Jim.

I know you had issues early on with the polished centers. The painted centers had a thick ceramic like coating on them to fill any voids, at least the Cup I's and all other wheels made by speedline I have refinished did. I am assuming they did the speedlines the same. I had a set of polished centers but they were older and had the same paint on them as the 993 Turbo S polished wheels. It is possible they were refinished this way though.

bweSteve

Very interesting info. Great that both of you ^^ can share your experiences and vast knowledge too.

To the OP, my opinion is that the polished centers give just a tad too much "bling" to the wheels & detracts from the awesome curves of our cars.

I spent a lot of time with this particular Tahoe Blue 964Turbo car... (which had the polished centers...)
https://rennlist.com/forums/964-turb...964-turbo.html

and side-by-side, compared against my car with the RH36's painted centers,... the painted really gives the car a more classical & classy look. The polished seemed too much like trying to put brainded stainless steel slip-on covers to all your engine bay hoses... just NOT a good look, nor a good message that your car is trying to send, IMO.

Btw, that car is back up for sale in case you haven't seen... https://rennlist.com/forums/964-turb...le-blingy.html

Go with the RH36's in 18" with more aggressive offsets, run a nice wide 285/30 in the rear, and enjoy how much your car gives off that "I'm a race car" look & feel, AND enjoy the improved unsprung rotating mass (quicker launches too).

I bought mine through GMP Performance down in Charlotte, NC, but about 14yrs ago. They changed the number of bolts back in 2004, from 38 bolts, to the now 40 bolts.

=Steve

K964

Kerscher makes a beautiful wheel that is lighter than the RH. And working with Emmi from Kerscher was great. Granted these are for a NB, and $ exchange dependent, but I had a set delivered to my door in 10 days for $2,700.

K964

cobalt

^^^ looking good

I found that the polished looks good on some darker colors. I purchased a set of new polished center speedlines for my turbo and when I got them I placed them next to the car and decided they weren't right for cobalt blue but I like them on black and IMO look good on the flachbau cars (std eq on turbo S) although the flachbau is over the top flashy to begin with.

Metal Guru

I was inspired by the Turbo S wheels which have polished centers and center caps.
To your point Anthony, I feel that the polished centers do a good job of picking up the dark gray of the body (as do the stock amber corner lights) and brightening it up a little.
Jim polished and coated my RH wheels back in 2007 and they still look like the day they were delivered.
He also re-contoured the centers.
I did have to have the centers chemically stripped by a commercial stripping source beforhand.
To my eye, the Kerscher wheels need bigger lug apertures. Even the RH apertures aren't as big as the Speedlines but they are bigger than the Kerscher's.
It's hard to beat the overall appearance of Speedlines centers. As you can see in the picture, the Speedlines (on AThompson's Forest Green Turbo) centers have a little more contouring than the RH's. Also the lug apertures are larger on the Speedlines.

jim dorociak

Paul has it really been 10 years? WOW! When I restore RH 3 piece sets I open the lug nut hole size to that of a Speedline. They are also located slightly further down each spoke. There is a flat spot across each spoke that I remove while I am re contouring the spoke. All of these restorations are a labor of love and I actually put a Speedline center on t he bench next to the RH center being modified and cleaned up to get the closest in proper shape possible. The new RH 3 piece turbo wheels being sold today are the best in overall shape and the parts used are highest quality than ever before. jdorociak@gmail.com Jim

cobalt

Paul,

Looks great and your car is stunning, I always liked the gray although the forest green is sweet as well. What is not to like about a 964 turbo

Jim has it been over 10 years since we first discussed these? It seems like yesterday. Interestingly I am working on the car that you did the first set of polished speedlines for and IIRC it was a definite learning curve . Funny how he was talking about redoing the car back then and it is finally being finished up all these years later.

Metal Guru

Thank you. Makes those $$$ I've spent on paint correction worth it.
Wish I knew more about the history of my car. I assume that it was specifically ordered by someone in Metallic Slate Gray. I do know it was bought new in Pennsylvania and showed up in Michigan a few years later.

There's no Sub!