4 bolt pattern....?

Ok i was having this debate with polygon about lugs. in his oppinion is bad to have only 4 since they will snap if you put some serious power on the car and he sais that its better to change them to a 5 bolt.

what do you guys think?

If you're just comparing four lugs to five lugs, I don't think that it really matters. When you ad a fifth lug you've got 25% more lugs than you did when you had four, and logically this means that you have 25% more "area of attachage" (damn pauly shore!) which again using logic would mean that a five lug wheel could handle 25% more power, if lug ammounts even have anything to do with how much power a wheel can handle. Of course this says nothing of a four lug wheels ability to handle power, it just says that five lugs can take more, but not that they are really needed.

Doubt it'd really make much difference unless your car had ~1000hp. And by then, you'd probably be running slicks, which I think most come in 5 lugs anyway?

thanks for the info guys:)

I've heard arguments like this before but when you look at how this is actually designed, it may not be true.

For example, there are two things going on here to carry the load:

1. Clamping force -- Most of the actual load is being carried by the clamping of the wheel to the axle hub(the friction between the two).

2. Shear load on the bolts/studs never really occurs unless the connection "slips" - i.e. the applied forces exceed the clamping force so the wheel slips or turns with respect to the axle hub. (Here, the load would be put on the cross-sectional area of the bolts/studs) Not likely to happen except in the extreme cases.

Besides, the engineering design would have a safety factor on potential slippage as well as the clamping force. Also, for an equivalent car, you would theoretically use smaller diameter bolts/studs if there were five of them than you would use if there were only four. Of course actual design may depend on other limiting factors.

honda drag cars still run 4 lugs...

anything else???

And by then, you'd probably be running slicks, which I think most come in 5 lugs anyway?

slicks are just tires, and can be mounted on any wheel...

the 5 lug hubs CAN have more clamping force, though it depends on the hubs, wheel studs, wheels, etc.

it's not just one thing...

you can have a crappy 5 lug setup compared to a really strong 4 lug...

not that hugely important.