Shot Peened Rims - Poor Man's "Forged"?
 

To start this off, I found some rims by a company KINESIS that claims their wheels are both FORGED and SHOT PEENED.

http://wheelsperformancecom.stores.y...t/kinesis.html



I have seen some discussion in the Forced Induction section about shot peening internals, gears for the tranny, etc, to improve strength. If I remember correctly, shot peening does not actually cost that much.

So my question is, have any track junkies heard of taking a lightweight track rim, that is NOT forged, and getting it shot-peened (then probably powdercoated) ?

It would be a pretty good deal IMO to get cheap, light track rims, and get them shot peened / powdercoated for extra strength on the street/track.

What do you guys all think?

i dont know anything about those wheels but my friend just put some on his
s4 they look okay

I had a sponsorship offer from them. Lexani just bought them out and they seemed ok, but had some bending issues on the track. I don't know about shot-peening a non-forged wheel or anything though.

Some of the rims don't look that bad...

Typically shot peening will induce compressive stresses to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 the diameter of the shot (shot particles are .1 to 1.0 mm in diameter).

This is good for giving the wheels the ability to take on more stress before crack propagation occurs.

With a proper heat-treat, hardening process, and temper cycle, you probably won't ever need the addition of peening.

Is it overkill? IMO for the application of a wheel....yes

I have seen that really awesome video of the rays factory where they showed how their forged rims are produced. But I don't know much about how cast rims are manufactured.

Are most cast rims heat treated, etc, as you mentioned?

Thanks for your input.

I'm not sure, but I would assume cast wheels would need to be heat treated as well, just to increase hardness.

kinesis rims are used alot on porsches and for thier race teams...

expensive as well!

I think Doug has them on his car, or something that looks exactly like the 1st ones.

I would love to have a set of Kinesis. They are big on serious track cars and Porsches, mostly because you can have them custom made to your specific width and offset. one reason why they cost so much.

I've heard great things about Kinesis wheels...but damn are they spendy!

Shot-peening not recommended!
 

True statement. Shot-peening will make the outer layer of material tougher, but basically a forged wheel differs from a cast wheel in that the method of manufacture aligns the grain structure of the material in such a fashion that it is stronger than cast, by forcing the material to flow under heat and pressure in dies. Wheels cast under ordinary conditions will by design need larger amounts of material (i.e. - thicker spokes and rims for example), to have equivalent strength to a forged wheel of the similar style. Thats the advantage touted by having forged wheels - for an adequate design strength, they can be made with less material and be lighter.
BTW, I would not recommend having your wheels shot-peened unless by a certified professional, and even then I concur that it is wasting money. (The statement about "it is a cheap process" worries me! :icon38: ) Shot-peening is such an operator-dependant process, that if a guy did not know what he was doing with the shot blaster, he could actually warp the wheel in question if the blast gun was allowed to "dwell" on one area too long - it is kind of an art to do it right. Aerospace companies certify their folks who perform shot-peening.
cheers,
ChinaClipper
Z Club of Texas
'03 Z VIN #00159