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I spoke on the phone today with Mike at Future Classic. I had a few questions about the 14mm stud hubs for the E9x M3 that they’re selling. He’s a very nice. Total motorsport enthusiast. They saw a need and filled it with this product. (He was breaking studs on his E9x M3.)
The hubs are BMW F8x M3 hubs—not OEM supplier pieces. They wanted customers to have confidence that they were getting BMW parts. The F8x M3 hub almost fit on the E9x M3 platform, but not quite. The inboard/outboard fitment is close but not identical. They had to machine the mounting plate on the hub slightly to get it exact. They also had to tweak for the wheel speed sensors. The rear hub flanges also needed some tweaking to get them to sit properly on the E9x M3 platform. The coating they put on the hub is largely to prevent rust from forming
I asked if they were willing to sell just fronts or rears. He said they could do that.
We had a metal machine shop drill out some brand new E9x M3 front hubs to 14mm a couple months ago using the Rogue Engineering jig kit. We did it out of frustration that 12mm keep breaking no matter what we do. (Last year, I replaced all four hubs, bought 3 sets of brand new forged wheels and used the best studs I could find----still broke a stud a year later.) This product was not out on the market yet. If it had been, I probably would have gone this route instead of drilling hubs. Even though I just replaced my rear hubs a year ago, I am thinking long and hard about switching now to the Future Classic rears so I can have 14mm in the rear too. (I'll leave the current drilled out 14mm E9x hubs in place for now.) I spoke to Minicorsa today to ask about how hard it is to replace the rear hub flange if you leave the sealed bearings intact. They said if the bearings are left in place, the job is not that hard. So, for now, I would look to just replace the hub flanges with the Future Classic pieces.
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