An old timer I work with says all wheels with a larger diameter wheel hub then the vehicle actually has must have a hub eccentric ring to take up the gap/space , If not....he says the lug nuts will loosen up. Is this true? I have been running aftermarket wheels Cragers, centerlines, weld draglites ) with larger diameter hubs then what was actually on the vehicle of mine in the past years and never had lugs or wheels go loose, was I just lucky?

Thanks

Most of the time OEM engineers use a hub centric design. It is just good engineering practice. The aftermarket generally ignores it since it is cheaper to make a one size fit all wheel. When I design custom brake kits I make them hub centric and when I buy custom wheels I make them hub centric. But as you pointed out, there are lots and lots of cars running around with cheap Crager wheels with giant center holes.

Hub centric IMO is needed when an aftermarket wheel is not lug centric with shank lug nuts.My brick is street strip,gets over 1000 miles cruising every season and on a good year I get 50 passes at the track at almost 150 mph......so far. If using stock style rims and lugs the hub centric would be desirable.

I made some centric rings for my Centerline wheels

hub centric rims not a must tight lug nuts a must.

For what it's worth, we have lug-centric steel wheels that my wife's snow tires are mounted to, and I use a hub centric ring on them.

kinda like a belt & suspenders ?!?!? . . . . the aftermarket aluminum wheels I got for my Journey for winter tires, came with a hub centric adapter piece for the wheel to fit like a OE piece . . .

.???

Pretty obvious.

Not all wheels are hub centric. Some are lug centric.

First of all, MANY aftermarket wheels are not hub centric because because to make every design of aftermarket wheel's center bore specific to every manufacturer would be ridiculously cost prohibitive OR the selection would be extremely limited.

"some are lug centric" - well actually ALL are lug centric ... or they wouldn't fit the car now would they !! In reality, they're NOT lug centric, that's just the bolt pattern, but modern manufacturing equipment and processes keep the tolerances tight enough that they could be considered "lug centric".

a timely topic for me, as i was wondering what place[s] are the "go to" for the purchase of said rings ?
any recommended sources ? [as always, TIA ! ]

Never had an issue not running a hubcentric setup. I've logged at least 100,000mi that way.

I cut these down on my lathe to fit
LINK

It's more of an issue with later model stuff that have large diameter wheels and low profile tires.

A tall sidewall tire will absorb some of any potential out of round (not centered) vibration.

Back in the 80's I ran a custom wheel and tire store.
The only hub-centric wheel issues (vibration) that we ever saw were on ultra low profile tire and wheel combos on the more exotic type cars (Porsche 928 S4, etc).

The hub centering rings are a good way to help eliminate the possibilities of vibrations.

i was thinking about doing just that.
easy to do.
how tight of a tolerance did you use ? i was thinking "tap in fit" [OD] for the wheels, and .003-.005 larger ID for the axle flange hub.

Here's some I had machined for my TT2's.

how close do those fit the wheel and axle hub ?

This, yes

I'd recommend a swipe of anti-sieze on them...
The hub-centric aluminum wheels on my Pathfinder required significant persuasion to come off the steel hubs on the rear.
As in, 5-lb hammer with 36" handle.
After cleaning up both surfaces and applying anti-sieze, it's much easier now.