Brake Clearance
If the spokes of a wheel don't clear your brake calipers, then the wheel can't be used at all. We made sure all 18" APEX EC-7 wheels can properly clear OEM steel brakes, spacer free. Because of the large variation in clearance needs, APEX produced the EC-7 wheel using three unique face profiles. When the correct profile is used for each specific vehicle application, every Big Brake Kits can clear the spokes spacer free. The flattest face profile offers maximum caliper clearance for high offset, narrow wheels, and older vehicles with Big Brake Kits. The deepest 18" concave face still has enough room to clear wider aftermarket Big Brake Kits on almost all applications. Contact us to confirm brake clearances for your specific application.
Brake Clearance - Barrel
Designing a wheel with spokes that clear a Big Brake Kit, is only half of the battle. The inside of the barrel needs to be large enough to physically fit large calipers and rotors. Be warned— not all 18" wheels are made equal. The barrel of the EC-7 wheel offers unmatched caliper clearance because wheels shouldn’t limit your choice of aftermarket brake kits, and brake kits shouldn’t force you to run oversized wheels.
The EC-7 barrel diameter is an improvement over ARC-8 design. That difference allows the EC-7 to clear a Brembo 6 piston, 380mm kit, where the ARC-8 simply cannot. This is vital on 18" applications because they are the ideal wheel diameter for performance and race applications. Without enough clearance, most larger diameter brake kits will almost certainly not fit behind typical wheels, forcing you to compromise with heavier, larger diameter wheels. Most 18" wheels on the market make aesthetic compromises to their design that consumers wouldn't even know have a major negative impact on barrel clearance. We 2D modeled most Big Brake Kits available in Solidworks and tweaked the wheel design of the EC-7 prior to production in order to fit as many kits as possible. Contact us to confirm brake clearances for your specific application.
Open Hub Center
Race wheels can't just be light, they need to function in a high performance environment. Unlike the narrow lug recesses of most other wheels, the EC-7 wheel features bored-out lug recesses that easily accommodate over-sized race lugs and beefy impact sockets. This allows for quick and easy wheel changes and prevents chips and scratches from tools.
Hub Centric
All APEX EC-7 wheels are purpose built for select vehicle applications, and centering rings are never required for any BMW application. All 5x120mm bolt pattern wheels feature a direct-fit, 72.56mm center bore.
Center Caps
We don't reuse one cap design for all of our wheels. Every EC-7 wheel is designed to work with factory center caps. You can easily replace APEX center caps with OEM BMW roundels for a clean factory look. The EC-7 wheels will ship with either our carbon-look center cap or our redesigned, Gloss Black center cap that mimics the size and shape of a BMW factory center cap.
Wheel Hardware
The EC-7 wheel can be used with all OEM and aftermarket mounting hardware with a 60° tapered seat. Lug bolts, wheel locks, and stud conversion kits all work perfectly. The EC-7 wheel also accepts wheel spacers without issue. The shallow rear chamfer allows the wheel to remain hub centric even when 5mm flat spacers are used. The chamfer is deep enough to clear the chamfered lip found on some aftermarket spacers that would typically cause improper seating of the wheel and, therefore, wheel vibration.
TPMS Sensors
TPMS sensors, which monitor tire pressure, are one piece of technology that can't be compromised. The attention to OEM compatibility on the EC-7 wheel doesn't end with center caps. All APEX wheels accept OEM and aftermarket equivalent BMW TPMS sensors, and any standard sized metal or rubber valve stem.
