Wheels, wheels, wheels. When tuning or upgrading a car, new wheels are often at the top of the list. Like many people I often opt for Slot.It wheels, good quality products from a proven manufacturer. Recently I needed some wheels for a car that I was working on, and couldn't find anything suitable. So I decided to try Canada-based BWA. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the range of wheels available, and the huge range of inserts. Prices are very reasonable, especially with current exchange rates. I found what I needed in about two minutes flat! Ordering was easy, and soon a couple of sets of wheels and inserts were winging their way across the Atlantic...

I was a bit worried about the inserts because they're made from resin which can be delicate and I have a habit of breaking things! But I shouldn't have worried, the inserts are easy to work with and I haven't broken any, yet...

The picture above shows the inserts with small amounts of 'flash' (excess material). I bought 16 inserts and about half of them had noticeable amounts of flash. The photo makes it look worse than it is, the excess was wafer thin and simple to remove, just lay the insert flat on some fine sandpaper and rub the insert on the paper with your fingertip. Very soon you will have a perfectly finished wheel insert. It took me about 5 or 6 minutes to clean off 8 inserts, and I wasn't exactly working hard - it's almost therapeutic! The inserts look great, very crisply cast and nicely defined.  

The wheels are superb and required no work from me. They're beautifully machined, they look like they've been polished - it's almost a shame to cover them with an insert!

As you can see in the photo above, the securing grub screw fits through the rim of the wheel rather than a boss at the rear of the wheel. The car I was working on was an AutoArt Porsche GT3R, which has relatively narrow wheels and there isn't a lot of room under the wheel arches because the chassis is quite wide. Even the narrower Slot.It wheels protruded past the arches - I needed wheels with wide rims but as narrow as possible overall.

The BWA wheels have a small boss at the back of the wheel, but offer the option of removing this (there is a small extra charge). The photo above shows, from top to bottom, a BWA wheel with the boss removed, a standard BWA wheel and a standard Slot.It wheel. Sometimes you need to lose those extra millimetres...

Below are a couple of finished wheels. To paint the wheels and inserts I stuck them to a piece of scrap board with Blu-tak putty and sprayed them. Any visible imperfections are due to my painting!

Tyres are Slot.It, I usually use zero-grips at he front and P3's at the rear. The central rib on the BWA wheels is slightly smaller that on Slot.It wheels, so the tyres end up with a low patch in the centre. A couple of minutes sanding the tyres will cure this problem.

Finally, the little Porsche is finished! Although it doesn't look it, this car's a little bit special to me because it's one of my first attempts at printing my own decals (though some have been re-done since taking this photo). 

The wheels finish it off perfectly. I used 'boss-less' rear wheels and standard fronts. It has Slot.It axles and spur gear. With wide P3's at the back it has phenomenal grip, far better than the standard car. And the wheels look awesome!!!!

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