hoefi

No. Powder coating does not lead to hydrogen embrittlement. However, some powder coatings, due to the thickness applied and their elasticity are very good at hiding sub-surface cracks. Even non-destructive testing methods involving dye penetrants will not show these cracks sometimes. Only x-ray would reveal cracks under the paint. The best wheels to used on a track car are polished wheels. First, being polished, it eliminates stress raisers. Second, being polished and with no surface coating, any cracks will be a lot more noticable.

Maxx Schlick

Title of the post is "Limits of Stock Z06 Wheels"
The wheels were designed and tested to handle stresses for the tires they were intended to use. R compound tires have much more traction and the stress on the wheels is much greater than they should be subjected to. Anytime you upgrade one part of a balanced system you throw the system out of balance. Tires/Wheels/Hubs/Oiling/brakes etc.

BAREFOOT JOE

There are going to be failures. Defects in manufacturing can and will happen. There are a lot more stock wheels running around than mods. My big question is what is the failure rate, as compared to other wheels.

Twil1ght

As with everything else, very small. I'm not going to argue the powder coating issues... choose to believe what you want. I'll just say that I raced a long time, and this was something we were very careful about.

Painrace

Frank halls a** with his car and has never had a problem. When I was racing we did not use cast wheels and we got new ones every six months or so but they were always from sponsors. I think the difference is the driver. Frank is smooth and I learned to be. You can't hit things with them or get the car in the air a lot or very high and expect them to last. For 99% or the HPDE drivers, I would not worry about it.

My family heard many times in the stands, "How can that number 55 car be so far out front? He looks like he is on a Sunday drive!" That is the fast way. Smooth is fast. I am not saying you don't drift the car or stab the brakes but you do it smoothly. Try to do all that while the car is going straight and you will put minimum stress on the wheels. Spinning the tires and sliding just waste time and energy and is slow! Sometimes you have to be agressive to pass or because you are being pushed. That should not happen at HPDEs.

Enjoy your car. Inspect everything personally or have crew guys like P & M or Katech do it. If you look at your brakes and wheels frequently I don't think you will have any issues. If you see a problem start to bevelop, buy new ones.

Good luck!

Jim

stabori

Lets face it, GM should have done it right and put forged wheels on the car. Plain and simple bean counting. For 99 percent it is no problem, but a race car for the street needs proper rims. sure they look good but this is just another reason its a great bang for the buck, some bucks were left out.

cbgpe

hydrogen embrittlement can cause premature fatigue failure in plated parts unless it is cooked out of the part. If memory serves a number of hours @ 400 degrees f does the trick
So if this problem is associated with plated wheels and not painted wheel we may have a clue to what the problem is

TAILWAG

What reasoning are you using to claim the chroming a wheel makes a wheel stronger.....???????