# 18'' Futura rebuild



## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Don't really post much these but figured this would be a nice topic


Now this particular set belonged to a buddy of mine and I had been after him for what has to be 3years for him to sell them to me. He called me back in October telling him to make him an offer he could no refuse.

I tried them on at First Class Fitment and decided it was a done deal and picked them up later that week. 










My goal was to leave them the way I got them and just clean them up, but after really looking over them I decided to basically keep everything but the faces. Faces are brushed and cleared which I love.

The center caps had been powder coated gold, which I liked at first but later wasn't crazy about. it also turned out that all the engraving on the center caps where almost all worn off. I got in touch with a buddy in Florida who does machine work, asked if he could get rid of the gold powder and re engrave the logo and he came through




























next was the gold bolts the wheels came with. They looked like they saw better days so I sold them. Picked up a set of after market chrome and latter decided I wasn't a fan. A few buddies of mine had original OZ hardware they weren't using so they gave them to me. Ended up with 2 sets of 144 bolts which leaves me with extra after the 160 I need

They where in pretty rough shape so I decided to give it a go cleaning them with a tumbler I had picked up

before









after



























They came out clean, not chrome shinny but a huge improvement. I have a buddy who has a connection with a chrome shop so I will be sending the bolts out to get chromed and the nuts to be zink coated.

After looking at the lips and knowing this was a set of wheels I am not planning on ever selling I decided to go all out and get in touch with Felgen Fuchs about the radinox lips they offer. I looked at Tuner shop and they wanted more then double the price. So after a few emails with the guys at Felgen over in Germany and two weeks of shipping I got the lips

regular aluminum lips









stainless radinox









I also decided not to use the barrels I got with the wheels so I will be placing another order with Felgen for those in the next week or two.

That's all for now. Ill keep this going with updates. Figured I would give the forum some life :laugh:


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## BT12 (May 25, 2012)

The 18's look nice


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Yeah,I ALMOST picked a set of 17''s up to convert to 18'' but you cant compare a conversion to a true 18'' futura


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## spiker369 (Apr 30, 2013)

These are so sexy, good work so far! :thumbup:


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Thanks man. Plan this week is to get the barrels ordered and the bolts out for chroming


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

just placed order with Snap On for the sockets needed for the OZ bolts

https://store.snapon.com/Shallow-10-pt-mm-Socket-Metric-Shallow-Impact-8mm-10-pt--P754010.aspx

https://store.snapon.com/Shallow-10-pt-mm-Socket-Metric-Shallow-Impact-10mm-10-pt--P754011.aspx


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Niiicce. :thumbup:

Glad to see you making progress on these. Once I get my new centers, I'm tearing my set apart and rebuilding them again. :laugh:

The stainless lips look really good. They almost look chrome. The biggest PITA is going to be if they get dinged or scratched and trying to polish them back out again. I was going to say throw a coat of clear on the bolts/nuts, but hearing that you're going to plate them is even better. I got a tumbler too. I'm going to do the same with the hardware I have and put some clear over the top so I don't get any surface corrosion.

I added you to The Official Wheel Build Almanac & Reference Thread so people can check out your work in the future. Make sure you post your lip/barrel/offset specs for before and after.



P Q said:


> Yeah,I ALMOST picked a set of 17''s up to convert to 18'' but you cant compare a conversion to a true 18'' futura


Also, I disagree... :laugh:


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Im not worried about the lips getting scratched or dinged. these are the radinox, the ones you see videos of people running into curbs with and throwing off the a roof lol.

Your conversion I like. On B5 audis all the ones I have seen look weird.

As far as posting beginning and final offsets. I have no Idea what I started with lol.


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

P Q said:


> Im not worried about the lips getting scratched or dinged. these are the radinox, the ones you see videos of people running into curbs with and throwing off the a roof lol.


I must see said videos. :laugh:

This was my buddy's b5 s4 on 17->18 Futura's and I thought they looked pretty good, but that's just my opinion. (I'm biased of course...)


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5bw-C6NSrg


I just like the 18'' version, it allows for better caliper options down the line lol


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

bolts and nuts have been sent out for plating, barrels have been ordered and I did some test fitting over the weekend


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Niiice. :thumbup:


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Got my nuts and OZ bolts back

Zink plated the nuts that I got with the wheels









Zinc plated the Original OZ nuts









Chromed the heads on the original OZ bolts. Got them done through a friend and the guy who did it is the same guy that plates the awards for the Grammys, little fun fact.









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Came home to this after work Friday night to this









Supposed to be getting 2 boxes, so still waiting on one more. There where 2 barrels in this box (6.25") Hopefully the other 4 are in the other box.

Took the barrels out, was happy to see they are black already since I was planning on painting them. Also these are the thickest barrels I have ever come across. They are just about twice as thick as my CCW barrels










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Sunday I compound/polished/ waxed the faces, prepped the two barrels I got Friday and finally got rid of the gold that was left over after I had the center caps machined.

Reflex silver touch up paint worked pretty well


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Those are the thickest barrels I've ever seen. God I hope my new barrels aren't that thick. I'm only planning on ~1/8" of thickness. That's what my lips/barrels are currently.


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

I doubt spin techs will be that thick. my brother got his barrels from them and they are normal, How are you building yours? Mine are sandwich so it doesn't matter how thik the barrel is. the stainless lips are a little thinner then a normal lip so it evens out. The wheels measure out to 9.5 exactly


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

P Q said:


> I doubt spin techs will be that thick. my brother got his barrels from them and they are normal, How are you building yours? Mine are sandwich so it doesn't matter how thik the barrel is. the stainless lips are a little thinner then a normal lip so it evens out. The wheels measure out to 9.5 exactly


My old barrels were from Spintech and the new ones are coming from Spinfab. From what I understand 90% of aftermarket aluminum lips/barrels are bought from a company called Triangle and manufactures them to order, so I'm assuming I won't have an issue with a different type of barrel. My issue is that I had to pay a machinist to cut each bolt to length so that they would clear my brakes with the old faces. I plan to run the same bolts again this time so I don't have to worry about changing my pads to new ones and possibly shearing off all my assembly bolts. My face to brake fitment is very very tight. 17" faces aren't meant to clear brakes of this size.

Oh, and mine are reverse mount this time. The last set was sandwich.


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

yeah Felgen Fuchs spins all there stuff in house over in Germany. pretty sure its where Tuner shop gets some of their stuff from too. and yeah my clearance is as tight as it can get too

I pmed you


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## Matt 337 (Apr 10, 2009)

Love the futura's :thumbup:

I got a couple of the radinox lips from Felgen Fuchs a couple years ago when I rebuilt my Ronals, they are hands down the best lips. When they get dirty all it takes is a little water and they wipe to a clean shine, no polishing needed.


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Yeah I am impressed.

Update

Went to put the wheels together and as I went to torque the first, the nuts started stripping. I was torquing to 20ft/lbs. guess it was a bit much for the used nuts. I'm going to have a full set of new ones ordered tomorrow. I already took the wheel apart and cleaned it so I can start again when the nuts come


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Just ordered all new 7m nuts from Spin tech. they said using original OZ bolts with the new nuts to torque them to 17 to 20lbs. I guess 20ft/lbs was too much for the other nuts. I do remember after I got the wheels and took them apart that the nuts came loose with little to no effort. So this is on hold till I get the new nuts delivered. hoping I can get them by Sat


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

home stretch. Finally got them built on Friday after I got new nuts from Spin Tech










used the silicon that CCW uses. Find it a lot easier to work with vs the grey RTV I have always used in the past. The GE silicon gives you more working time and it seems to stick to the metal better


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Yesss these are looking great. Can you try to show what the outer edge of those lips look like in profile? It looks like there's a groove around the perimeter of it, but I can't tell if that's a reflection or not. :beer:


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

its folded over itself. you wont see that once a tire is mounted


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

got the tires mounted yesterday. Now I just need to detail the car and get these beauties on


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

Decided to put the wheels on the car for a quick test fit and get some weight on them just to double check they aren't leaking. I am still waiting for longer studs to come in and I haven't adjusted the coils yet. I also need to go down in size from the spacers I am using on the rear. Hopefully I can get it all dialed in and the car detailed for the summer by the end of this weekend


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

So finally got a bunch stuff done on Sunday that I have been trying to get done for a while.




























Might dial the height in a little more and mess with some different spacers but that's pretty much it


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Looks awesome. You need a shoot of the car or at least some outside scenic shots. :beer:


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)




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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

Looks fantastic man. You going to Dustoff on Sunday?


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

na I wont be there, my brother will be there in his S3 tho. Hes going to defrost on sat than heading to dustoff sunday. I have work sat and sunday im checking out a vineyard out east (long island) for a possible wedding venu


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

P Q said:


> Sunday I compound/polished/ waxed the faces


Can you give some detail on what you did for this compound/polish? I still have some orange peel texture left after my centers were cleared and I'd like to get rid of as much of it as I can.


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

I just used off the shelf compound/polish/wax from the auto parts store. I like meguaires. I used a DA buffer and just went over the face like I do a car. There is deff some "peel" on my faces but nothing I am stressing over.

Are yours powder or paint cleared?


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## DUTCHswift (Feb 22, 2012)

P Q said:


> I just used off the shelf compound/polish/wax from the auto parts store. I like meguaires. I used a DA buffer and just went over the face like I do a car. There is deff some "peel" on my faces but nothing I am stressing over.
> 
> Are yours powder or paint cleared?


Powdered clear. I thought yours were too.


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## P Q (Feb 4, 2009)

They are, but they are "smooth". What I did def will not take down peel. You would need to wet sand.

I wasn't sure what yours where


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