OZ Futura Build Question - HELP!

[DUTCHswift]

Will it matter if I sandwich or reverse mount them? I know it may be more difficult to seal them if there are two seams with sandwich mounting. My centers are at the shop and about to be powdercoated so I'm trying to figure out how or if they need to mask parts of the mating interfaces.

When I bought my Futuras they were sandwich mounted, but when I look at older Lotus Esprit teardowns of the wheels I see that they are reverse mounted and left the lips/barrels together like this:



My build and wheels in question:
My Road To Futura: OZ Build/Timeline

What I'm planning on building (with exception to color scheme):

[1badg35]

there are two different series of faces that were produced back in the day, sandwich and rear mounted futura faces... keep using the faces as they were originally mounted. honestly sandwich mounted faces require the most assembly work as you can't just unscrew and pop out a face, but its also better integrated and a stronger 3 piece wheel.

[DUTCHswift]

Is the difference that the 18" centers were reverse mounted and the 17" centers were sandwich mounted? I just don't know how much I trust who I bought the wheels from that they were assembled correctly.

[1badg35]

wheel faces that are rear mounted have a huge depression in the area on the face that the bolts go through. the face basically has to cover the thickness of a lip and a barrel which is why its machined deeply.

if the face is machined on both sides, its sandwich mounted. face has to lock into the lip and barrel to be structurally feasible


send a picture of one of the faces and it'll be easy to figure which it is

[DUTCHswift]

I wish I took better photos of them before they went off to get powdercoated but this is all I have right now. So are you suggesting that if the back of the face does not have a machined 'lip' for the ID of the barrel to sit it, it is reverse mounted. (Both lip and barrel seat on face of center?)

[1badg35]

exactly. very hard to tell from those pictures, looks like those mount from the rear though...

if there is no depression on the back of the face, that will confirm they are rear mounted.

[DUTCHswift]

if there is no depression on the back of the face, that will confirm they are rear mounted.

...and that the PO had no idea what they were doing...

In any case I'm sure it would not hurt to have them mask off both the front, outer edge, and the backside just in case.

[a112]

I would say those were rear mounted from factory, but higher resolution photos would help.

[DUTCHswift]

I have a gut feeling that they were reverse mounted and not supposed to be sandwich mounted.

I asked the powder coater to mask both the front and rear surfaces either way so that the paint doesn't effect the torques that I set the bolts to. I figure having the nuts rest against the bare aluminum on the back of the face is a better alternative than having to destroy the powder coat when I torque them down.

When I get them back (probably next week or so) I will follow up with pictures to confirm.

Thanks for the help.