Flow Forming Technology

General News

In the last few years, other wheel companies have been trying to follow suit to replicate what we've been able to carve out for ourselves in the off-road/truck segment. We're always trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to wheel designs and the overall fit and finish of our products. Being able to maintain that high level of quality and meeting the high expectations of our customers is an on-going challenge that we pride ourselves on.

SCS has decided to step our wheel game up, dig into our pockets, and invest into new technology. We are super excited to announce that we are transitioning the complete line to be produced using "FLOW FORMING" technology. This is the most advanced method of production short of offering full-forged wheels. The flow forming process of the barrel offers similar attributions to that of a forging process. After casting, the wheel is placed on a machine where hydraulic rollers and heat are used to put a large amount of pressure on the inner barrel. As the wheel spins, the pressure of the roller stretches the alloy to form the remaining width of the wheel. This process changes the mechanical properties and grain structure of the cast rim area to have better strength and stiffness. All of this will result in a wheel that is generally lighter and stronger at any given load rating when compared to gravity casting, high and low pressure, as well as tilt casting.

Flow forming wheels have been around for years, but they were mainly offered for sport cars and sport sedans. They do come at a premium due to the benefits and quality of the finished product. This means there will be a price bump in 2019, but for the rest of 2018, pricing will remain the same as we transition. Final pricing has not been decided yet.

We want to be the first truck wheel company to have a complete line of flow forming wheels. The last couple of containers that we've been shipping out have been flow forming in the 17x8.5 size for the Ray10 and Stealth 6 models. By early 2019, all other models and sizes should follow suit. We encourage you guys to do your own research on this technology. It's really cool stuff!

 

Have you had issues with your wheels breaking or just looking for that new thing to set your brand apart from the competition?

 

From ^^^

"We're always trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to wheel designs and the overall fit and finish of our products."

 

He just wants his wheels to be even better than before and continue to be better than the knock offs like VTX

 

This is gonna be awesome !

 

Can’t wait to get these new ray 10’s with -38 offset on!!

 

So.....will this make production faster? If so, does this mean I might get a chance of some brushed copper ray 10’s for my 4runner?!? I have struck out 4 times now...... but I don’t give up easy, I’m going to get a set one day!!

 

Just a reminder for everyone, there will be a price bump across all wheel models starting March 1, 2019.

 

Will this new "flow forming " technology lighten up the wheels? Or will they weigh the same lbs?

Really interested in the F5's with this technology

 

The last sentence in the 2nd paragraph states that the result will yield a wheel that is "lighter" so yes the wheels will be lighter than previous. We just don't have the acutal numbers yet since it's all still in transition for certain models and sizes.

 

Sounds good thanks for responding, looking forward to seeing the results & the updated figures on the website. So the new F5 wheels should be available in March?

 

@SCSPerformance

Vin, Out of curiosity is there a way to visually tell the difference between a flow formed wheel and non-flow formed in the same make/model? I had a set of 4 of your wheels and just ordered a 5th. I'm just wondering if the 5th wheel I just received would have any cast-in identifiers that would tell me.

Edit:

I found my answer:

Aside from the box telling me, the flow formed wheel had these two ribs on the outer hub which aren’t present on the older version. I’m guessing as a result from manufacturing.





Flow formed:





Not flow formed:

 

How much lighter is the flow formed wheel compared the not flow formed Ray 10? If you dont mind me asking

 

I honestly didn’t notice a huge difference when moving the boxes, but I didn’t weight them separately with a scale (probably should have). Just got tires mounted so well never know now.
It’s probably minimal, but it gets compounded on the truck as unsprung weight has a greater effect on MPG that sprung weight.

 

I guess we'll never know lol. Maybe SCS has an answer for us.

 

Interesting. Is that visible on the other side of the barrel? IE, a visual difference with tires mounted?

I'm also interested in some flow formed F5's. Lighter would be great, but I won't turn down stronger.

 

It’s on the outside of the drum (inside once the tires are mounted). Once I had all my tires mounted I tried to find it, but could not tell them apart.

 

For those that have been wondering, the new flow formed 16X8 F5 with 3.5BS weighs 18lbs.

 

Nice, I guess we can expect the 17x8.5 to shave a pound as well

 

It looks like the website is updated with flow formed information. I'm assuming Hans7's rim is the 3.5" backspace version, which matches up to the 18lbs listed.

Now i'm trying to remember what the weight of the old F5 17x8.5 was. 22lb? If so, it lost 5oz to the current 21lb 11oz listing.