American Racing Rims & the Parts Around Them: A Scenario Guide for B2B Buyers

There's No Single Right Order for American Racing Rims

I manage purchasing for a shop that handles roughly 150 wheel-and-tire orders a year. Maybe 145 — I'd have to pull the system to check, but the order of magnitude is right. Over the last four years, I've ordered a lot of American Racing rims and the parts that go with them, and I've stopped pretending there's one universal answer for what should be on the purchase order.

The wheels are the easy part. The parts around them — center caps, lug nuts, spacers, bearing kits — are where builds go sideways. And the right list depends entirely on the scenario.

I sort them into three. If you're a purchasing coordinator, dealer buyer, or parts manager, one of them is probably yours.

The Three Scenarios I See Most Often

• Scenario A — Classic restoration builds. 1960s–70s muscle cars and similar older platforms. Narrow offsets, factory-style fitment, aesthetic priority.
• Scenario B — Modern truck and SUV builds. Larger diameters, corrected offsets, stance or tire-clearance goals, load considerations.
• Scenario C — Older vehicles with worn or noisy hubs. The wheels are half the order. The other half is making sure the hub survives the new wheels.

The parts list looks very different in each. Here's what we actually order.

Scenario A: Classic Restoration Builds

When the vehicle is a period muscle car or older restoration, the American Racing Torq Thrust II VN515 is usually what our customers ask for by name. It's the five-spoke design most people picture when they hear "American Racing" — and yes, the series has been around long enough that the name "American Racing Equipment" shows up on older reference material. Same brand, older corporate name.

The goal in this scenario is straightforward: match the original look and make sure the wheel actually fits the customer's car.

What ships with these builds:

• The VN515 set in the correct diameter, width, backspacing, and bolt pattern.
• Center caps — same series as the wheel. The caps aren't universal across American Racing's lineup, and definitely not across wheel sizes.
• Lug nuts — thread pitch is vehicle-specific. Most classic GM muscle cars are 7/16-20 or 1/2-20. Ford varies. Confirm before ordering.
• Valve stems.

What we usually do not order:

• Wheel spacers. These offsets are designed for factory fitment. If the customer needs spacers to clear the fender or brake caliper, the wheel width or backspacing was probably wrong, and the better fix is the correct wheel — not a spacer stacked on top of the wrong one.
• Bearing replacement kits. Original-style bearings usually survive unless the hub was driven on a bad bearing for years.

One thing that bit us in late 2023: we ordered a set of center caps without confirming the customer's stud thread pitch. The caps fit fine, but the car had been converted to metric studs during a front-end rebuild. We reordered. Not expensive, but it went against our vendor's account and made me look sloppy to my operations lead. Lesson learned — get the thread pitch in writing before the PO goes out.

Scenario B: Modern Truck and SUV Builds

This is where wheel spacers actually belong in the conversation — and where a lot of the old "spacers are dangerous" talk comes from.

If we're fitting a modern truck or SUV with larger American Racing wheels, the customer usually wants a wider stance or has to clear bigger tires. That means one of two orders:

1. Wheels with a corrected offset — no spacers needed.
2. Wheels at or near stock offset plus hub-centric spacers to push the track out.

Here's the outdated advice I run into: wheel spacers are always unsafe. That was reasonable guidance in the 1990s when cast-aluminum spacers of unknown origin were everywhere, and people ran them with stock studs on heavy vehicles. A hub-centric spacer machined to the vehicle's center bore, paired with extended studs or bolt-on hardware matched to the thickness, is a different product.

That doesn't mean every spacer is fine. A 10mm slip-on with factory studs on a 6,000 lb pickup still worries me. My rule of thumb — and it's a rule of thumb, not a rule:

• Up to about 5mm — usually fine on stock studs.
• Over 5mm — extended studs or bolt-on spacers, preferably hub-centric.
• Heavy vehicles — this is not where to save $20 on hardware.

For these builds, watch bearing load too. Bigger wheels, wider offsets, and any spacer all move load outward. If the truck has 150,000 miles on original bearings, it's irresponsible not to flag that a replacement may be overdue. One shop I worked with installed a set of 20-inch wheels on a high-mileage Tundra and returned the truck two months later with a growling front hub. The wheels were fine. The bearing wasn't.

That's where one of the parts in the second half of this guide becomes relevant — wheel bearing replacement kits. But the fitment logic is its own scenario.

Scenario C: Older Vehicle or Worn Hub

Before the kit question, a quick definition, because it matters for how you spec parts: a wheel bearing is the part inside the hub that lets the wheel spin without dragging on the axle or spindle. Older rear-drive and 4x4 vehicles typically use tapered roller bearings. Many modern front wheels use sealed hub assemblies. When the bearing goes, the customer gets growl, vibration, or play at the wheel.

When we're fitting American Racing rims to an older vehicle — a pickup with 180,000 miles, or a classic that sat for a decade — the customer is going to feel every rough bearing through the new, stiffer wheel. Sometimes the right order includes a bearing kit at the same time.

What's in a typical wheel bearing replacement kit:

• Inner and outer bearing.
• The bearing seal.
• Sometimes a spindle nut or cotter pin.

What it is not: a universal part. Kits are matched to axle and hub specs, and they're often specific to a rear axle or front corner. Confirm by year, make, model, and axle before ordering.

Where this goes wrong for us: a customer reads one forum thread, orders a kit for a rear axle that isn't actually what's under the truck, then asks us to "make it fit." It won't. The better workflow is to get the axle specs in writing first — then check whether the bearing is actually the problem, or whether the noise is coming from a worn tire or a bad U-joint.

We had a return in 2024 on a VN515 set where the customer's front seal wasn't seating properly. The bearings were fine. The seal had the wrong inner diameter for the spindle. Not the wheel's fault and not the bearing's fault, but the order was ours. Now I keep a note in the vendor file: confirm spindle diameter on any pre-1985 vehicle bearing order.

Which Scenario Is Yours?

I can't run a full diagnostic from a purchase order, but three questions sort most of what lands on my desk:

1. Is the vehicle pre-1980 and largely original? → Scenario A. Order the wheels, center caps, and lug nuts. Verify thread pitch and bolt pattern. Skip spacers unless the customer has already tried the wheels and has hard measurements.
2. Is it a modern truck or SUV, with stance or tire-clearance goals? → Scenario B. Have the offset and spacer conversation up front. Don't quote spacers until you know stud length, hub bore, and vehicle weight.
3. Is the vehicle high-mileage or has it sat for years? → Scenario C. Check axle and hub specs before ordering a wheel bearing replacement kit. Not every project needs one, but skipping it on a worn hub is going to come back.

When a PO arrives without these details, I send it back to the sales side. Sounds bureaucratic. It's cheaper than reordering. It also keeps our vendor account clean, which matters more than people think — a distributor with a messy account history gets slower quotes and less flexibility on lead times.

A Note on What This Guide Isn't

My experience with American Racing rims comes from a shop doing roughly 150 orders a year, mostly American muscle and truck builds. If you're a national distributor moving thousands of sets, my calibration on lead times and stock isn't yours. And if you're outside the U.S., duty, shipping, and local regulations on wheel spacers can change the math entirely.

I also can't speak to American Racing's forged or custom-order program from personal experience. We've mostly ordered cast VN515-style wheels. If a customer wants a forged set, confirm fitment and lead time directly with the vendor.

And pricing moves. I've had alloy quotes shift 8% in a month. Any figure here is reference only — verify with your distributor before it goes into a quote for a customer.

Honestly, I'm not sure why some vendors still quote spacers without asking about stud length. My best guess is it's inertia from the era when most trucks ran stock studs and nobody thought about it. If you know the real reason, I'd like to hear it — it would make at least one conversation on my end shorter.