okay so its not exactly brand new.  last year at the end of may i ordered rays wheels volk racing te37 16″.  I purchased them through Upgrade Motoring and in the process met a really cool guy named Glenn Kowta.  It would begin an almost year long email exchange! The size, model, fitment and color of the wheels made them a special order straight from rays in japan.  true jdm i guess.  they said it would take about 3 months for them to come in but i felt they were worth the wait.  3 months later and they’re still not in!  they offered me a different model of volk racing white wheels but i declined and said I would continue to wait for my te37’s to arrive.  It would turn out that, they had accidentally placed the order for the other wheels (the ones they offered while i was still waiting for the te37’s).  It would then become another 3 month wait.  A total of 6 months pass by and Glenn informs me “your wheels are here!” with numerous emails and phone exchanges.. it still took me a bit of time to get them as I was soo busy at work, i kept not having the time to arrange shipping.  finally out of the kindness of Glenn’s big heart, he shipped them to me for free because he felt bad about the initial mixup and long wait.  They sat in my living room through most of February.. and March.. and April..  I finally took them to joel’s around May and they continued to sit until… June 10, 2006.

Thanks to the generosity of both joel and gene of jasper performance i was able to get a set of maxxis ma-z1 victra’s. here are some interesting facts about my wheels:

Material is 6061 aircraft grade aluminum. This material is hot forged. 1st forging process is done with pressure of 5,000 kilograms per square centimeter. 2nd forging process is a slow process with 3,500 kilograms per square centimeter. The lip is also forged to 3,500 kilograms per square centimeter. This allows the wheel to have less material than other wheels, but have more strength and durability. The excess material is machined off (to tolerance of 1/100 of a millimeter). Powder coating and clear coating is done by a special proprietary process to ensure long lasting quality and durability.

each wheel is 11.2 lbs each.  for those of you unaware.. that translates into “really fucking light” which further translates into less unsprung weight and that is most definitely a good thing. the car feels lighter and a lot more responsive. yay.