Yeah I'm always anal about lugs. I snug them by hand until I get the holes perfectly centered, then I do just half a turn or whatever to feel slightly snug with a regular half-inch wrench in a star pattern, then I switch to the torque wrench and star-pattern them first to 55 and then to 85. So I wouldn't think the rings would be an issue regardless, but I'm just scraping for any idea at this point.
Took the car down to a shop this morning to let them debug and comment on it. Don't know if they're the world's best front-end guys or not, but at least they have really nice alignment/balance/lathe equipment and they've done good work for me before, and they're nice honest guys.
Their guy says no way it could be anything but a rotor issue, the suspension is all tight, etc, esp given what I've already replaced, but of course he can't lathe my 2-piece floaters (I told him to go ahead and try anyways just for the hell of it, but it didn't go well).
All normal advice on the problem is "brake rotor issues", but I've got a pile of brand-new supposedly high quality rotors from two different manufacturers that I've run through the car and still had the same issue
. I even checked the last 1-piece rotors (from Z1) with a dial gauge myself and they were well within spec (checking runout mounted on the car, lugnuts holding the rotor on the hub).
Some days I just feel like driving this car off a damn cliff :P