[eschaider]

Mike, the reason you get a lot of the NRG stuff popping up when you do your searches is likely because their QR units have no detectable slop while driving the car. Additionally the low profile 400 series units allow the wheel to be positioned in the same (if you are willing to do a little machine work) or nearly the same position (if you are not willing) as the original wheel.

It feels like you are making this tougher than it has to be. The biggest bug-a-boo is the requirement for the flat wheel center. If that is absolutely important to you there are some manufacturers that could likely make that for you — for a price. I suspect when you get done with those various customizations to get to your desired specs, just buying the ERA column with their excellent QR system already installed like Patrick's car would be the short way home.

You could quickly make a determination of whether or not the low profile NRG unit could work for you by just popping off the center hub on your existing wheel and looking to see how much recess EM provided with the hub on your column. If it approximates an inch or so you are good to go with the low profile NGG unit. The only thing you need to do is machine off an inch or so of hub, redrill it for the NRG 70mm (I believe) PCD and screw everything back together — no other machining or welding required.

I can tell you from my own NRG unit that once the unit locks down it has zero slop in it, so once the wheel is attached the feel is as if the QR hub were not there. The flat spoke wheel requirement you have is either going to cost you a couple hundred dollars for a custom wheel (if you can't find a production wheel) or you could make yourself an adapter that has your existing wheel PCD and one of the two (70 or 75mm) NRG PCD's on it and then reuse your current wheel.


Ed