The Birth of My PS Engineering Wheels

I was lucky enough to be able to visit Phil Schmidt's shop (the PS in PS Engineering) and watch my wheels being built.  Phil has a very well equipped shop located in Torrance, California.  He's a one man operation, and stays very busy.  If you'd like to contact Phil, his phone number is (310) 534-4477.  Richard Oben of North Racecars is also a dealer of PSE wheels.  His prices are the same as buying direct from PSE, and Richard has tons of experience with Factory Five cars, so he'll be sure to get you the right sizes.

The shop is like a candy store for Cobra lovers.  He's got different types of wheels all over the place, as well as about 7 different lathes and mills.

The wheels are made in two pieces.  The inner section is a sand casting.  The outer is machined, then polished.  He starts out by putting all the outer sections in an oven at about 300 deg.  While those are heating, he prepares the inner sections.  The first step is to drill the bolt circle on the CNC mill.

Then he chucks it up in a lathe and cleans up the mounting surface.  He also took off a little extra on the fronts to pull the center of the wheels in a little further so they look better.

It's now time to mate the inner and outer sections.  He pulls one of the outers from the oven.

He places the hot outer section on a flat surface.  Inside the outer section is a stack of blocks that sets the backspacing of the wheel.  The cast inner section is placed on top of the stack of blocks.  It barely slides into the outer rim.

The reason he heats the outer section is to expand it a little.  A little water from the hose will cool it and compress it down on the inner section.  He said there is about a 15 thousandths interference fit when they're cooled.  He then welds a bead around the inside lip to complete the wheel.

He double checks the trueness of the wheel, and found one to be slightly off.  Three thousandths off on the lathe and he had it true.

My PSE wheels in 17" x 9" and 17" x 11"
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Wheels Mounted with Sumitomo HTR Z 275/40's and 315/35's

Last Update: 08/31/2003