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Hey guys, I'm Corwin. I drive a '96 Honda Accord. I'm not much of a Stance guy (I prefer function and driveability normally)......but I do love and have come to greatly appreciate wheels, particularly those made in Japan in the 90s. My car desperately needs paint, but I prefer to spend all my money on wheels.......
About 2 years ago I purchased my first set of 3-piece wheels. I had previously owned multiple sets of 5Zigens, some Enkei RP01s, and a few other misc wheels. I had long been a lover of Racing Hart wheels, and a friend of mine ended up giving me a great deal on some Racing Hart Tracer Type Cs. They needed a fair amount of work, but I was up for the challenge. Here's just a couple pics showing the condition I got them in, and how they turned out.
Since it was my first set of wheels, I'll admit I did take some shortcuts I shouldn't have, and have since regretted them. But that's all in the past and the knowledge is being used on my next build.....the more well known sister of my Tracers, the regular Racing Hart Type C.
Fast forward to last fall, and I basically had a set of wheels fall into my lap. I had a friend who had bought them with the intention of refinishing them, then lost interested. He offered me to trade them for a spare front lip I had, and $150 cash. I hopped on them with the quickness. The deal maker was that 2 of the wheels were high disc and thus solved any issues I had clearing my big brake kit. They also had only a partial set of center caps....which as many of you know can be the hardest things to source.
Here they are in all their spray painted glory.....yes, a previous owner spray painted them all in one piece.
And the center cap pieces I had.
I initially had planned on doing a partial rebuild on them myself doing the best I could....but after thinking and talking over with some friends I decided I wanted it literally do a full restoration. From that moment forward, it was game on.
First order of business was to source the caps......after a few months of searching, I got incredibly lucky. I found a pair of hex caps on Yahoo Japan. This was great, since I already had 2 extra lug covers.
Then 2 weeks later, again on Yahoo Japan, I found a complete pair of wheels in fantastic condition with complete caps. I ended up just going for it, and buying the wheels, and paying for the shipping from Japan.....which was not cheap lol.
I then ended up selling the wheels and keeping the caps, to recooperate some of my money. I would have liked to keep them as spares, but in order for me to finish by my deadline, I had to sell.
Now, I had a full set of caps, along with a few spare parts too.
It was time to move on to the lips, and choosing the sizing of the wheels. The original specs were 17x8 +30 and 17x9 +34. At first, I was torn on what sizes to go with, so a bought a few lips so I could test fit and see what I wanted. Because the front wheels are high disc, it limited the size lip I could run vs the rear wheels. I ended up going up half an inch all around from the factory sizes. So the new specs were 17x8.5 +24, and 17x9.5 +28. This put them more aggressive than my Tracers, but not overly so to where I will have to stretch a small tire.
A shot of the old spec wheels (1st & 3rd), next to the new specs (2nd & 4th).
Once I was set on the sizing, I sourced a pair of each size....and got great deals. In all I paid about $150 for all 4 lips. And they were virtually brand new (had just been taken off new old stock Works....pretty much blemish free. Once I had the lips I took them and the lug covers and dropped them off to be chromed. I decided I did not want to deal with bare polished metal again, so the chrome justified the extra cost. I will not be daily driving on these either, so curbing isn't a huge concern. The lips and dishes should be done in the next week or so.
The faces and inner barrels were then dropped off at a local powdercoating shop. I went with a color called "Mirror Silver" which was about as close a match to the original as I could get without doing a custom powder. I just received them back today....and good lord are they beautiful. The color ended up being slightly darker than the original, which was fine, but because they did a 2-stage job (powder then clear), it gave the wheels a dripping wet finish. Its super hard to capture on the camera, but hopefully you can see what I mean....
This is where I'm at currently.....the deadline of the project is the beginning of June, which shouldn't be a problem to make. I may not have a few of the smaller things done, but the wheels will be ready to roll on by then.
Here is what I have left:
- pick up lips and lug covers
- buy all new hardware
- assemble and seal wheels.
- anodize center cap hexes in fresh red and blue
- polish center cap coins
- have the "Racing Hart" lip decals replicated, along with new inspection stickers with the new specs printed on them.
When all is said and done, literally the only thing I won't have touched would be the center cap coins, since mine are in such great condition and just need a light cleaning in polishing. The ultimate goal of this build is to refinish this set of wheels to look as close as they could to brand new in the 90s, while having just a few upgrades (chrome) over the factory setup.
Stay tuned as I finish the wheels and thanks for viewing!
About 2 years ago I purchased my first set of 3-piece wheels. I had previously owned multiple sets of 5Zigens, some Enkei RP01s, and a few other misc wheels. I had long been a lover of Racing Hart wheels, and a friend of mine ended up giving me a great deal on some Racing Hart Tracer Type Cs. They needed a fair amount of work, but I was up for the challenge. Here's just a couple pics showing the condition I got them in, and how they turned out.
Since it was my first set of wheels, I'll admit I did take some shortcuts I shouldn't have, and have since regretted them. But that's all in the past and the knowledge is being used on my next build.....the more well known sister of my Tracers, the regular Racing Hart Type C.
Fast forward to last fall, and I basically had a set of wheels fall into my lap. I had a friend who had bought them with the intention of refinishing them, then lost interested. He offered me to trade them for a spare front lip I had, and $150 cash. I hopped on them with the quickness. The deal maker was that 2 of the wheels were high disc and thus solved any issues I had clearing my big brake kit. They also had only a partial set of center caps....which as many of you know can be the hardest things to source.
Here they are in all their spray painted glory.....yes, a previous owner spray painted them all in one piece.
And the center cap pieces I had.
I initially had planned on doing a partial rebuild on them myself doing the best I could....but after thinking and talking over with some friends I decided I wanted it literally do a full restoration. From that moment forward, it was game on.
First order of business was to source the caps......after a few months of searching, I got incredibly lucky. I found a pair of hex caps on Yahoo Japan. This was great, since I already had 2 extra lug covers.
Then 2 weeks later, again on Yahoo Japan, I found a complete pair of wheels in fantastic condition with complete caps. I ended up just going for it, and buying the wheels, and paying for the shipping from Japan.....which was not cheap lol.
I then ended up selling the wheels and keeping the caps, to recooperate some of my money. I would have liked to keep them as spares, but in order for me to finish by my deadline, I had to sell.
Now, I had a full set of caps, along with a few spare parts too.
It was time to move on to the lips, and choosing the sizing of the wheels. The original specs were 17x8 +30 and 17x9 +34. At first, I was torn on what sizes to go with, so a bought a few lips so I could test fit and see what I wanted. Because the front wheels are high disc, it limited the size lip I could run vs the rear wheels. I ended up going up half an inch all around from the factory sizes. So the new specs were 17x8.5 +24, and 17x9.5 +28. This put them more aggressive than my Tracers, but not overly so to where I will have to stretch a small tire.
A shot of the old spec wheels (1st & 3rd), next to the new specs (2nd & 4th).
Once I was set on the sizing, I sourced a pair of each size....and got great deals. In all I paid about $150 for all 4 lips. And they were virtually brand new (had just been taken off new old stock Works....pretty much blemish free. Once I had the lips I took them and the lug covers and dropped them off to be chromed. I decided I did not want to deal with bare polished metal again, so the chrome justified the extra cost. I will not be daily driving on these either, so curbing isn't a huge concern. The lips and dishes should be done in the next week or so.
The faces and inner barrels were then dropped off at a local powdercoating shop. I went with a color called "Mirror Silver" which was about as close a match to the original as I could get without doing a custom powder. I just received them back today....and good lord are they beautiful. The color ended up being slightly darker than the original, which was fine, but because they did a 2-stage job (powder then clear), it gave the wheels a dripping wet finish. Its super hard to capture on the camera, but hopefully you can see what I mean....
This is where I'm at currently.....the deadline of the project is the beginning of June, which shouldn't be a problem to make. I may not have a few of the smaller things done, but the wheels will be ready to roll on by then.
Here is what I have left:
- pick up lips and lug covers
- buy all new hardware
- assemble and seal wheels.
- anodize center cap hexes in fresh red and blue
- polish center cap coins
- have the "Racing Hart" lip decals replicated, along with new inspection stickers with the new specs printed on them.
When all is said and done, literally the only thing I won't have touched would be the center cap coins, since mine are in such great condition and just need a light cleaning in polishing. The ultimate goal of this build is to refinish this set of wheels to look as close as they could to brand new in the 90s, while having just a few upgrades (chrome) over the factory setup.
Stay tuned as I finish the wheels and thanks for viewing!
