Rota Wheels..
 

What do you guys think about Rota wheels??

Are they any good??

They are generally set up for FWD and other small cars. That being said, I want a set of GT3's for the Miata.

PHIL, That's what I had on my Eclipse. They were good light weight wheels, but I don't think you can get them much wider than 8". Subaru guys seem to use them a good bit.

I would not even run them on my FC, much less my miata or GTR.

Sorry, I am part of the "don't screw over the originators" group.

Any quality sports car does not deserve low quality control, reverse engineered wheels. It's companies like them that steal ideas that turn this industry into shit.

People run E-Bay steelies at rallycross track days too, does not make them great.

There is a reason why serious sports cars, track cars, race cars and OEM wheels that are outside the phillipines market are not made by ROTA.

I know lots of people that run rota wheels without issue (on and off the track). However, I have seen a few pics of bent and completely cracked Rota wheels that would make me cautious.

Also, as SPICcnmFD mentioned they generally aren't made in widths wider than 8".

For an FD that serves track duty, I would look for something else. For a street car I think they are fine.

Please leave personal politics out of it. I know some people are very passionate about Original JDM parts, and some prefer to get the more inexpensive knockoffs. I am guilty, I have Attain knockoff bumper guards on my FC, made by JKL. Sorry if I can't afford twice the price, and in my case, the replica is better quality.

Also, if the design is just slightly different, it is not an illegal copy.

So, Phil, if you are looking for wheels for one of your FD's, or the RX-8, look elsewhere.

i can google some nice pictures of OEM wheels that are utter failures. Including our early year 1993 FDs....

I know a few people with Rotas and i have never seen a problem with them even after a few years of driving on them. I assume that if you do something like hit a 1' deep pot hole at 40 then something can go wrong. But im sure high end "paying for a name" stuff will have the same results.

see notice no one in this thread said i had rotas and they cracked.... my buddy has volks and bent his when he hit a bump. If you hit anything hard enough you can mess up a wheel no matter if you payed 2 grand or 200 also has alot to do with the tire. If your wanting to track it you might wanna try rbmotoring.com and see what they have fairly cheap name brand wheels. i don't think rota's are horrible and have thought about them on my fb just depends on what there gonna be used for and how much you wanna pay.

don't cheap out on wheels.

relativly cheap and yes most of their rims are designed for a honda civic as in widths and offsets but there is one you can get up to 9.5 18" amd about 4 you can get in 9 18-17" with fd friendly offsets. what i like about them is i can get almost any of them blacked out or bronzed. i am looking at some ROTA black SVN rims 18" 9" 35 offset for my BB FD on all 4 corners when i get back to the states in a month or two and will have more to report on these rims then.

on a side they do do custom offset width's if you buy enough of them from what iv heard whick is why you can get the wider rims in certain models. if you look at all thier rims offsets and widths you will see that there are some weird sizes that would not fit any stock setups.

z

z

iv been constantly looking at wheels and weights and what not. i even almost bought some 17" work vs-xx untill i found out the weighed in the range of 24-26# at 1800$ LOL ya freaking right in my opinion those kinds of wheels are show wheels not go. id pay sub 1g for a wheel that weight but no way will i pay 450 a wheel for a boat ancor. sorry to those hard core dont rip off the originals but i dont think so. now ill probably end up with wheels that weigh around that but at half the price im cool with that. thats just a crazy high price in my opinion.

z

A friend of mine has Rota P54Rs on his 240SX, and they fit good. They're 18x9.5 +12 offset. I think they're one of the few rims Rota makes that come in decent sizes. IMO don't worry about wheel weight unless you seriously autocross or track your car. However, from what I've heard, Rota rims have terrible QC...they crack under heavy stress. Where's that infamous picture...oh yes.

http://og-made.com/wp-content/upload...motivation.jpg

If you're really worried about wheel weight and don't want to spend a fortune, get a set of Enkei RPF1s. They look great on RX-7s.

Hey proz07, are you implying that you can find knock-off VS-XX rims for less than a grand? if so let me know where, I might like a set to use for drift rims...

Im another firm believer in Original over Knockoffs but they have there flaws too. rota seems to be the only one that hits the forums.
Hey Ranger^ Where's that infamous picture...oh yes.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...ayzGTU/077.jpg

Buy what you want man cuz no matter what you have it can snap.

Last time I checked, Rotas were made in the Phillipines.
You can make your own conclusions on their quality.


-Ted

lol wow i thought i posted this much longer but guess its only a month or so. in anycase unless you know the story behind those pics it dosent mean jack. i can even find pics of baja 1000 trucks wheel with the same damage course they cartwheeled a 4000lb truck to do it. everything breaks just some break sooner than others in anycase upon looking at offsets and sizes and just the overall design i will not be gettin any rota's and may very well end up with some name brand wheels. it is all starting to come back to dont spend money on something that you dont REALLY want, ya know. better to get what you really want now then settle and then change later anyway.
z

ive had 3 sets,on a 240 and 2 subarus,and i intend on getting the rota grids
er te37 knock offs for my fc, and the widths can be purchased all the way to a 10.5.
www.wheeldude.com has really good selection of rota's in a wide variety of sizes and fitments.....not slinging advertising for them either!!

I'm sure the people at Rota aren't using the best metal or best technique to make these wheels... but personally, design, tires, and how you are going to use it will ultimately have effects on the wheel.

Personally, I know they are cheap and they knock off more expensive wheels... But at the same time, you all will be surprised how many things are just re-labeled and you are just paying more for the name...

I personally have some high dollar wheels.. But at this point, I'm just looking for cheap wheels that look good that I could slap on some decent tires on and roll. Also, compare people using some of these on a car that weighs 1000lbs more than mine without any issues... I think its tested enough for me to buy it for my car... But if I were to put them on a car that weigh 1000 more than the cars tested and do some crazy high speed run and such.. Probably not.

Where else can you get 15 x 7, 15 x 7.5 or 15 x 8 wheels for the FC? That's my reason for going with Rota, I just can't find any other wheels in that size.

EDIT: Besides RS Watanabe's that cost ~$500 a wheel and don't really have good offsets for 15 x 8.

Check on some Enkei Cast wheels.

Personally, i would try to run some larger wheels for a 2nd gen Rx7. 15 x 7.5 and 15 x 8 seem to be sizes more common with miatas (reason why most wheel manufacturers are only making these in 4 lug)

I am sure the 2nd gen Rx7 should run a lot more than that especially with a 5 lug.

There are plenty of nice 16 and 17 inch BBS RS Forged 3 piece wheels that will fit nicely with a 5 lug FC as well and are around 800 ~ or so for a set of 4.

Check www.Rbwheels.com for used wheels

Apologies for hijacking, but for me, it has to do with class rules and gearing advantage.

Im probably going to get some Rota RM's for the Rx2, as they are only like $125 each. I have never understood putting 3K worth of wheels on a car worth the same amount.

ROTA wheels are not that bad. Prob one of the best cheap wheels out there. I was going to get their ssr sp1 copies but came across a good deal on the real things. But as far as stength they seem better than most. They are used in rally racing ECT, so I think they will hold up for us. As all wheels some might be a lemon but that's just life.

Considering buying a set of torque drift 18x8.5 fr & 18x9.5 rr et35 on both.
Pretty good copies of work cr kai apparently.
I could also go for the original for twice the price... Is it worth for my annual 6.000KM? I doubt

i like the look of rotas. just wish they sold the 15x8 5x114.3 in another offset

use a 1/2" spacer and some extended lugs.

It'll put you right at the outer edge of the stock fenders.

I have these and I love'em, I don't care about the name brand stuff, I just would rather spend the money on more stuff. And as for strength, I am convinced they are no worse than any other cast wheel. Mine got hit strait on at 25 mph and it only scratched the paint a little.

as for the end all style though sometimes your stuck with higher end brands. I might be looking at these SSR MKII wheels for the FB once my settlement clears.


http://www.driftspeed.com/images/mk2silve

Nice!!

I would love to get something like this!
http://www.driftspeed.com/images/mk3black

who makes that one?

I had Rotas and they cracked...

They were my track wheels (15x8 Slipstreams) and I only used them at the track twice and once on the street before one developed a crack in the hub area on the first morning of a 3 day track weekend. I had to do the rest of the weekend on my street wheels. Needless to say I wasn't happy. The cause of the failure was a design flaw where they put a sharp corner pocket on the back face of the wheel on either side of two of the lug holes, leaving a very thin wall. This lead to cracking which I fortunately discovered while re-torquing the weels after the first session (the one nut just kept turning, so I looked and could see the crack).

Of note is that those wheels are a custom size and I don't think they normally do a 5x4.5" on their 15" Slipstreams, so it may be a bit of an isolated issue. But there is the larger issue of them allowing wheels with a serious design flaw out the door, not the sort of company I'll EVER deal with again.

I just got my new custom Kodiak 15x9's yesterday, and even though I paid about 3x as much for them, I think they're well worth it.

What wheels would you recommend for 15 x 8 or 15 x 9?

I like my Kodiaks so far, but because they're a Canadian company, it made more sense for me to get those than say, 15x9 SSRs or Works, which are the other 2 I was considering (don't have to worry about the exchange rate, cheap shipping, no duty). I never looked into it, but you *might* be able to get some 15x8 Spin Werkes from Racer Parts Wholesale in an appropriate offset.

Other than that there's the other custom race wheel places, like Keizer (not exactly the best reputation) and Bogart (popular with Miata autocrossers using 275/35/15 Hoosiers).

im thinking about getting Kodiaks when i want to get myself a good set of track wheels

Just don't expect to get Kodiaks quickly. Its a small operation, they do have to custom build the wheels for you and there may be many people in line ahead of you, so be sure to order well ahead of time.

I'll certainly report back once I get back from the track on how they fit, etc (I am going to be rolling my fenders first though).

Are you allowed to roll in ITS?

The relevant section (9.1.3.D.8.a):

"Fenders and wheel openings shall remain unmodified. It is permitted to roll under or flatten any interior lip on the wheel opening for tire clearance. Cars with plastic/composite fenders may remove any interior wheel opening lip, but the resulting material edge shall be no thinner than the basic fender material thickness. Non-metallic inner fender liners may be removed."

I have a set of D2's on my XB thanks to Rishie, they are nice but heavy...