Terminating Ring Terminals - The Race Spec® Way

September 18, 2025 4 min read

This is a long read but I hope you’ll find it’s worth it!

Good things take time they say, this one took quite a bit at just over two years!

Our newest proprietary tooling solution is finally in stock, validated, and available to order.

Ring terminals.

A necessary termination on any application that is often done with either:

1) a good quality but unforgivably thin terminal with a brazed seam and crimped with a guess-so approach (usually incorrectly) and break easily after a few fastening cycles.

2) poor quality, made who knows where, cheapest bidder material, no vetted tooling, and just….no

We have been using this brand of ring terminals on in house production builds for a few years and they are now available on the site.

Available in a variety of wire and stud sizes, these cast terminals are superior in what you’re used to in every way. Mainly, they feature a squared tongue for more surface area to fasten against which results in a longer lasting terminal. Even better, they are much thicker than the ‘standard’ style ring terminals we offer from Molex. Secondly, they are of a solid wire bucket design and feature a wire stop/inspection window.

I received the manufacturer’s spec tooling and was underwhelmed to put it lightly. Their entry point manual crimpers weren’t efficient and their top shelf battery powered hydraulic unit was nice but cost prohibitive and inconsistently caused flashing and deformation which doesn’t cut it for me.

I approached DMC for yet another project, with a similar game plan as with our tooling for the ever popular, ever knocked off, SS1.0 contact's tooling: to find a versatile crimp tool platform that would not result in just a single tool for a single terminal.

For 22-18AWG, 16-14AWG, 12-10AWG, 8AWG, and 6AWG applications we found the DMC HX4 crimp tool using their Y-Die system would be the ticket. There are over (400) different shelf Y-Die sets available from DMC, with solutions for everything from single/double ident brazed seam terminals, insulated ring terminals. coax, circular contacts, and more. With this in mind, it was sensible to base this project on this expansive tool's existing system as it added value. We consolidated as much as we could fit into the form factor available, so the 'small' die set will cover 22-12AWG and the 'large' die set will cover 8-6AWG.

For 4AWG and 2AWG, you will need a hydraulic tool...and not the one you found on Amazon for $49.99. We took care of this range as well, where you'll need a DMC HD51 with our larger gauge die set that features nests for 8AWG, 6AWG, 4AWG, and 2AWG in one double machined solution. The reason for the overlap here with 8-6AWG also being covered on this tool in addition to the HX4 is that 6AWG can get a bit tough with the HX4, and it wouldn't be sensible for someone only looking to terminate 8-2AWG needing to buy (2) separate crimp tools and die sets.

I wanted to consolidate as much into a small space as possible to keep this cost effective, and the machining approach to get here on the HX4 die sets is impressive! As the terminal sizes vary, the length of the bucket changes so the nests are staggered in their total length to properly address this.

Safe to say, a mutual effort over a long period of time with many revisions resulted with us knocking it out of the park. The end result being a superior quality tooling option, higher crimp tensile strength yield for all wire sizes, properly designed nests per terminal offering with zero flashing or deformation, nests are laser marked with the terminal series to use them with, and a tool system that is not just a one and done purchase.

Saving the best for last, one of my personal favorite aspects of these terminals is that you can easily use them as a multi-wire termination point that can replace a bulky splice for common ground and 12V needs. Use a wire combination calculator or count your CMA, and you'll find a great alternative to high wire count splices that need to get into a feeder wire to then be terminated with a ring terminal.

There will of course be some who completely understand and value the uncertainty these resolve while also being easier to use, and some who view this as expensive and their Alibaba/Amazon 'tools' do good enough and '....have never had a problem'. The issue with that mentality is it's never a problem until it is, and ring terminals are often a brushed over component to your build while in fact they are typically part of some of the most important circuits, meaning you should not be risking their connectivity or reliability.