Custom Center Caps for Porsche Wheel [from CAD, prototyping to finish]

[BIGJake111]

I've learned to love this sort of stuff, I work with the universities Formula SAE team on the business side of things. It's fantastic to see people creating useful components from an idea to an integral part of our car!

[Nine8Six]

Well, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations on your new president! Looked pretty cool from the News clipping angle

Without wasting time, and more importantly than all forms of world-politics (combined), is the Great Center Cap! I did try a lot of different revolving curves & shapes and came up with this. Not 100% final but there, we’ll start with this. So far I've only shown it to my neighbor(loll) and a friend who, actually, deserve the credit for the GT3 style center cap idea, and surprisingly, he confirmed that we are going in the right direction.

So it all appears to be good geometry and a good starting point to base the remaining of the assembly onto (e.g. planed adapter, center with crest, etc).



^ The most frequent request I had during the years was “less protruding out of the wheel”. To comply with this, I’ve come down from the 42mm (CGT style) down to 13mm (GT3 Style). For those guys with non-concave hub wheels, this will be a better option (visually).




^ Here you are looking at the base sketch for the revolving feature of the main cap along with the distance between the outer edge of the wheel hub and end side of the cap.




^ Once revolved, the geometry look pretty prismatic in nature. What we are looking at here is the stock that will require turn machining operations (material AL6061).




^ Then goes the main cap feature to give it the look & feel. Although not an exact replica of the official GT3 center lock in terms of lock/tool features, it is pretty close and (to me) quite attractive. Simple! We are trying hard to get in features in a as-simple-as-possible way to avoid the ‘too busy’ effect, but also to make it easy later in rendering to achieve a good curve continuity and lighting reflections. After all, it is a cosmetic part more than a functional one so we might as well put energy in the bling area instead!




^ Those features; simple revolution of extrusions with a radius of 1mm (highlighted in orange) at the floor end. Again, all useful geometry for rendering purposes, and also very machine-able with a dedicated bullnose carbide cutter. The hollow center is obviously to accommodate a separate part having the crest or club logo stamped dead center. This part is separated from the main cap mainly because it will be in a totally different color than the rest of the assembly (most likely silver).

I’ll do this part later. Again, all subject for changes but so far this is what I am aiming for.

[maytag]

Hey y'all!
Help... please.
I'm installing a set of the 2nd generation center caps (man are they pretty!). So these are the ones with the tiny little set-screws. (I THINK that's the 2nd gen, right?)
What's the trick to installing them?

With my big banana-hands and hot-dog fingers, using the supplied allen wrench, I managed to -mostly- install one last night. it took me most of 30 minutes.

Is there a cool tool y'all use? or do you hire children from the neighborhood to do it?

Any tricks or hints would sure be appreciated.