lightweight wheels

[jmauld]

Is there a source for not-too-terribly expensive lightweight wheels that are the same width as the stock S14 SE 16" wheels?

I'm looking for a good set for Stock Class.

I've checked tirerack and tires.com, but all of the rims I saw there were a minimum of 16x7's.

If I can't find any, I'll just have to put the race tires on the stock rims and get some wider rims for the street. Oh darn..

[98TURBOKA]

Have you tried Discount tire direct? 1-800-938-3456

[Onizuka]

are you doing SCCA solo2? If that is the case, i think you are allowed to increase rim width to 7 or 7.5 inches wide and still stay in stock class. Im not sure though you would have to read up on the rules.

[jmauld]

Yeah, I'm looking for wheels for stock class in Solo2. From my understanding of the rules, you can go down .5", but not up.

[Onizuka]

i know weld wheels come in all sorts of sizes. They are light but pretty expensive...

[MadSideways]

Get some rota's which are extremely LIGHT and extremely CHEAP:

http://www.machiii.net/machiii/html/Rota_wheels.html

They have several styles and colors to choose from, with free shipping also....

450$ a set for 15's @ 12lbs,500$ a set for 16's @ 14.5lbs,550$ a set for 17's @ 16 lbs...

[Bronze MFP]

What about Kosei K-1's? Tire rack has 16" ones for around 150 a piece I think.

[Dori Dori]

Get some rota's which are extremely LIGHT and extremely CHEAP:

http://www.machiii.net/machiii/html/Rota_wheels.html

They have several styles and colors to choose from, with free shipping also....

450$ a set for 15's @ 12lbs,500$ a set for 16's @ 14.5lbs,550$ a set for 17's @ 16 lbs...

Cheap for a reason...

[MainEvent212]

yeah, cuz they dont say volk

[Dori Dori]

Uuh-hahahahahah.

WRONG.

If you new anything about me or have read any of my posts, you'd know I wasn't so shallow as to choose a wheel based on their name. I've seen these wheels fail on the racetrack on a friends car and have heard of many cases where the same thing has happened (under normal driving and racing). The Subaru crowd ate up this wheel when they first started surfacing, and that was the crowd I was most involved with at the time. Most of the time, the wheels never developed any problems...but others developed hairline fractures that could (and would if left un-noticed) break into peices. That's what happened to my friend's car during a track event. The center of the wheel and all the spokes seperated from the rest of the wheel while he was entering a high-speed sweeper at 100+ mph. IIRC, this particular set of wheels had only seen 3 or 4 track events prior (about 10-12hrs of hard driving)... A later inspection showed that 2 other wheels had hairline fractures and one seemed fine. And FWIW, these were track only wheels, so he wasn't driving around on public roads with them or anything. They were basically brand new.

[BadMojo]

What's the scoop on the Kosei K1's? Good quality?

They're a bit expensive drilled to 4 lug, but you can get them in a variety of offsets and at least some of them will clear 300ZX brakes. I believe they're pretty light too. The 4 lug ones don't come with center caps, but that's not a big deal (to me, at least).

[gunclap]

http://www.rimstock.co.uk/rims...t.htm

I'm going to try out the Pro Race 2 15x7 when i get the money. They are light and they're supposed to be racing wheels, so hopefully they wont break or anything. I emailed them and the wheels are $130 each. I'm also going to be autocrossing and i read somewhere that the 15x7 will not boost you up a class. I'm not sure if that is correct though.

-mark

[Exar-Kun]

"supposed to be racing wheels"

just because a company puts "racing wheel" it its ad, doest mean they something you should be using on the track. Hell, even OBX puts "Racing foot pedals" and crap on their website, that doesnt men you need those pedals to race....

yeah a 15x7 shouldnt up your class in autocross.

I agree with dori on the wheel quality issue. Kosei K-1's seem fine right now, i havent heard any bad stories or anything, other than offset issues in the larger sizes.-chet

[creophus]

So Rota wheels are no good?

[Dori Dori]

They don't come in Nissan friendly offsets anyway.

[MadSideways]

Seeing as how rota's or constantly used in real-world racing events:

http://www.rotawheels.com/rota_updates.htm

I would say your friends incidient is just that, an isolated incident. But I have always known to stay away from thin-spoked rims, no matter what brand they are, even volk. Rota has plenty of beefy spoked rims.

Also, I was under the impression that +40 was the OEM offset. If you're only going 1" wider than stock it shouldn't matter...

Also remember that changing the offset of your wheels would change center of your tire patch, thus changing the suspension geometry of your car, and could quite possibly lower your lateral g scores. Just because it feels better doesn't quite necessarily mean that it is.

[Dori Dori]

...that offset is for a 6" (or is it 6.5", doesn't matter) wide wheel...when you go wider, your offset should go lower.

Also, READ what I wrote. It is NOT an isolated incident.:thinker Go search around the net on miata forums, honda forums, and subaru forums and you will see that there have been a few incidents. The funny thing though is that everytime someone posts a failure, a rota rep is real quick to join in and explain that this never happens.Pics (not my friends car; different styly wheel):http://home.att.net/~blairphoto/scca.html

Here, this guy also uses rota wheels on his race car. I'm not afraid to say that they are used in racing. I don't really care. With failures like that, I don't trust them.

[Dori Dori]

1.

[Dori Dori]

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[Dori Dori]

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[MadSideways]

Quote »...that offset is for a 6" (or is it 6.5", doesn't matter) wide wheel...when you go wider, your offset should go lower.[/quote]This is untrue, the only reason wider wheels go with lower offsets is to prevent the wheel from hitting your suspension.

When you lower the offset you are however moving the center of the tirepatch more towards the inside of the wheel, resulting in a less efficient use of the tirepatch.

Quote »The funny thing though is that everytime someone posts a failure, a rota rep is real quick to join in and explain that this never happens.[/quote]Hehe, as if, although I am going to purchase a set of rota slipstreams myself.

Any lightweight wheel, (volk or rota), is going to be susceptible to heat damage. Which for most people occurs from inadequate cooling of the braking system. I can assure you cracks like that are not stress related alone.

[Dori Dori]

Just did some more looking around, that first wheel in the link (called the attack) was recalled recently. Apparently, they (rota) blamed it on a bad batch.

They seem to be a cool company when it comes to failures...they always take care of the customer and replace their wheels (and repair their cars). But I'd rather not buy wheels from a company that has to replace wheels and run mass recalls. Sorry, but that just doesn't sit well with me. Whatever though, different strokes for different folks.

[Dori Dori]

This is untrue, the only reason wider wheels go with lower offsets is to prevent the wheel from hitting your suspension.

When you lower the offset you are however moving the center of the tirepatch more towards the inside of the wheel, resulting in a less efficient use of the tirepatch.

Not really (unless you are talking about extremely low offsets). Besides, another advantage of lower offset is the ability to run more camber. More grip.

Any lightweight wheel, (volk or rota), is going to be susceptible to heat damage. Which for most people occurs from inadequate cooling of the braking system.

You cannot start comparing wheels based only on the fact that they are both made of metal. There are too many different techniques to produce wheels for this to be so simple, sorry. Most Volk wheels (and other high end race wheels) are forged, which is usually much stronger than your typical cast wheel (again, there are 3 casting techniques, all of which result in very different strength/rigidity/tolerance attributes), like the Rotas. So basically, this discussion would have to dwindle down to cast v forged...something not even worth arguing (for me at least).

[jmauld]

From the rulebook:

"Any type wheel may be used provided it complies with the following: it is the same width and diameter as standard"

The only exception to this is if the rims are measured in metric measurements. Then you convert the measurement to inches and round DOWN, not up, to the nearest inch.

I'm under the impression that the '95 240sx SE's came with 16x6.5" rims. With that being the case, a 7" wide rim will put you into either STS or SP.

[Exar-Kun]

alos keeping the offsets correct(going lower and the wheel width goes higher) helps keep the centerline of the wheels weight where you want it for the best suspension geometry and stress distribution(of course, extreemely wide, low offset wheels provide an exception, as to very high offset ones)...

just thought I would mention that.

[MadSideways]

Quote »Not really (unless you are talking about extremely low offsets). Besides, another advantage of lower offset is the ability to run more camber. More grip. [/quote]10mm is enough actually. And yes you'd have to decrease the camber to make it perform like stock again. And camber only gives you more grip under dry/warm conditions. In the rain or snow a camber of 0 degrees is optimum to get the most effective patch.

[MadSideways]

Quote »alos keeping the offsets correct(going lower and the wheel width goes higher) helps keep the centerline of the wheels weight where you want it[/quote]Actually, as the wheel gets wider, the offset is still based on the centerline of the wheel. (An offset of +40, is always 40mm from center, no matter what width wheel you choose). That is what the offset is there for, so that you can upsize your wheels, w/o having to worry about the wheel being off-centered.

[Dori Dori]

http://www.vtec.net/articles/v...=3446

Quote »Generally, if you increase the width of the wheel by 0.5", you want to subtract 0.5"/2 x 25.4mm/inch or about 6mm offset. This perserves the intended wheel geometry. However, there are some limitations, due to interference with the shape of the fenders and possibly other components:[/quote]Offset changes with width changes to preserve intended wheel geomety like Exar said.

[Dori Dori]

Even better:http://www.usacomp.com/Offset.htm

[Dori Dori]

10mm is enough actually. And yes you'd have to decrease the camber to make it perform like stock again. And camber only gives you more grip under dry/warm conditions. In the rain or snow a camber of 0 degrees is optimum to get the most effective patch.

10mm under what it should be, maybe; but that's where you're confused (with what the offsets should be).