I was doing some wheel & tire swapping last night and decided to pull out the bathroom scale and see what I had, heres the results.

Stock Wheel with worn out Falken 502=36lbs
Stock wheel with OEM Potenza 1/3 tread=38lbs
Centerline 16x8 with worn out Dunlop FM901=41lbs


Needles to say the extra 20lbs of rotational and unsprung mass is not making me too happy.

unfortuantly its hard to beat the stock wheel combo for weight. Mostly because the tires we have available in 225/60-14 have jello for sidewalls. I busted out the bathroom scale the other day too, look what I found...

http://www.celicasupra.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=80891#80891

Lighter wheels mean lighter pockets. :lol:

Ever look into Volk Te37s?

Regards,
James R

someone, think Mike Malloy has a posted file with weight of almost every wheel ever made but i can't find it.

unfortuantly its hard to beat the stock wheel combo for weight. Mostly because the tires we have available in 225/60-14 have jello for sidewalls. I busted out the bathroom scale the other day too, look what I found...

http://www.celicasupra.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=80891#80891

Yeah I saw your post. Stock Nissan Z32 wheels 16x8 are 16lbs each so I know it can be done. The centerlines are somwhere between 19 and 20 lbs The Kumho tires I just had mounted are about 1-2 lbs lighter ea. than the Dunlops, I will have to put that setup on the scale when I get home to see how that compares to the worn out Dunlops. I'm mainly just venting, It would be nice to get the package down in the upper 30's again. Boy those compomotive mesh's are light and pretty too. I wonder how much heavier the 16x8 would be. I sure do notice the difference in acceleration with the stock wheels and Falkens that I have been running around with today, even with the 300lbs of wheels and tires I have it loaded down with.

look what i just found
http://www.wheelspecs.com/main/index.php
the answer to your prayers? :D

and these
http://www.mysportscar.com/features/wheelweight.htm
http://www.europeanspeed.com/wheelweights.htm

Hey Wes:

Check out the Circle Racing website at:

www.circleracing.com

I was running the 16x8 with zero offset, 60.1mm centerbore, they weigh about 14 lbs, add the 245/45-16 Kumhos and total package was about 37 lbs. The Hoosiers were closer to 21 lbs each. I went to the 16x9.5 wheels and they weigh about 15 lbs each, still using same size tires. Yes, the difference in rotational mass is huge, better acceleration and braking too with lighter. I've heard that for every pound you take off from the wheel/tire combo, its like removing 20 lbs from the car. So if you can remove a total 5 lbs per wheel, thats 20 lbs total, like lightening your car 400 lbs (at least for acceleration purposes). Not sure this is true/accurate, I'm inclined to think the ratio might be closer to 10:1
Still, its big deal. For a custom wheel, the Circles are still a pretty good deal, and one of the lightest around. You should be able to get a deal at less than the retail prices listed in the website. I think a good deal now might be around $240/wheel.

Don L.

ok..there is a chance that this has already been mentioned but i didn't follow the links....I've heard that the pansport racing wheels are 14lbs....which is pretty light, i know they make the same style in a heavier wheel for everyday use and a lightweight wheel for autox/racing applications, i've seen them on old z's at local autox events.

Lighter wheels mean lighter pockets. :lol:

Ever look into Volk Te37s?

Regards,
James R

I thought you said these aren't available in our fitments anymore. I would love some bronze TE37s :drool:

no i think volk still is making them in a 14x7 with 8mm offset i think. id have to check again. but hey a group buy on a set of 17x8, 17x9 wouldnt be bad James.

charlie

I called a shop about the TE-37s not to long ago and he said they can get 16x8 in a +9 offset for $395 a piece, the only catch is that you have to pay up front and then they order them from Japan so you don't get them for a couple months. If I had $1600 burning a hole in my pocket I'd have gotten them, but that's a bit pricey for me.

unfortuantly its hard to beat the stock wheel combo for weight. Mostly because the tires we have available in 225/60-14 have jello for sidewalls. I busted out the bathroom scale the other day too, look what I found...

http://www.celicasupra.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=80891#80891

Yeah I saw your post. Stock Nissan Z32 wheels 16x8 are 16lbs each so I know it can be done. The centerlines are somwhere between 19 and 20 lbs The Kumho tires I just had mounted are about 1-2 lbs lighter ea. than the Dunlops, I will have to put that setup on the scale when I get home to see how that compares to the worn out Dunlops. I'm mainly just venting, It would be nice to get the package down in the upper 30's again. Boy those compomotive mesh's are light and pretty too. I wonder how much heavier the 16x8 would be. I sure do notice the difference in acceleration with the stock wheels and Falkens that I have been running around with today, even with the 300lbs of wheels and tires I have it loaded down with.

Those comps of mine have pretty beat lips actually, they are so so looks wise. I was planning on getting new lips made for them to widen them to a 15x8 but I never liked how they looked with my SSRs so I found another set of those instead. I will be selling the comps if your interested. They're pretty old, I imagine the newer ones that many members have are made a fair bit heavier duty these days (though I haven't bent mine yet, but I bought them bent).

Yeah the difference is pretty noticable. I had a set of 15x7 ARE 5 spokes, each weighed 22 pounds, + 15 inch rubber. Huge difference between those and my 15ish pound wheels.

my 16x7 enkei 92's weigh 16lb's each without tires. i havent mounted tires yet so dont have the weights with tires. also havent weighed the 15x7 enkei's or the 15x7 are's, or the 15x8 eagles. i guess i should do that. lol
william

look what i just found
http://www.wheelspecs.com/main/index.php
the answer to your prayers? :D
hehe thanks
we've been workin hard on it so far. the forum is a little slow and the rides section is kinda empty, but the wheel database and pics are pretty slick.

anyone want to post a few pics of mkII wheels or a link to a few so i can add them to the database? weights would be good too :)

its been awhile since i uploaded wheels, and ive only had my mkII for about 2 months.
id like to get the toyota sectiona t least as nice as the nissan section:
http://www.wheelspecs.com/specs/wheelbrands/94

my roomy the mr2 lover has done all the work on toyota so far so its kinda empty: http://www.wheelspecs.com/specs/wheelbrands/462

im also trying to get the search page revised so its more revised and will find stuff with a similar fitment, the only wheel that even comes up for 16x8 +0 is the ssr type-v, which is a pretty nice wheel and should be fairly light (16x7 is 13 lbs)

i appreciate the kind words man :D

my 16x7 enkei 92's weigh 16lb's each without tires. i havent mounted tires yet so dont have the weights with tires. also havent weighed the 15x7 enkei's or the 15x7 are's, or the 15x8 eagles. i guess i should do that. lol
william

Oh those eagles an AREs are going to be heavy :D , your 15x7 enkies will be 15 pounds.

the are's are the mesh wheels. i dont recall them being heavy from picking them up. might be though, never know. i know the eagles are heavy.

oh the mesh ones, those should be light. Theres a set of those in 16x8 in a little tire shop here, they're super light, look like rikens and have made in japan stamped on them. I think they are rikens. Too bad this set is a chevy pickup bolt pattern :(

yeah, i have a set of 5 origonal centercaps for the are mesh wheels and the 16inch enkei mesh wheels. hehehe. i could prolly get a pretty penny for those on ebay if i didnt want them myself. also got a set of the new chromed plastic centercaps that im modding to fit the 16's as i think they will look much better.

I can concur that the ARE mesh (mine are the 2-piece AR-205) 16s are fairly light. I made a post in the wheel weight FAQ.

As Colin Chapman said, "To add power, add lightness."

The weight was/is the main reason I didn't order those ROH Snypers. I was a bit surprised, as the Reflex wheels are pretty light.

Regards,

Jimi

If you want light, Volk TE37 in a 15x7 inch is only 10+ Lbs.

Available in zero offset.

They do have to be special ordered though, as mentioned. Remember Wes, I owe you a favor so if you decide to go Volk let me know.

Let me throw this into the mix if it hasn't been mentioned. If a 17" wheel and a 16" wheel (same width) weigh the same, the 17" wheel will have more rotational inertia (weight). The moment of inertia (rotational weight)is proportional to the radius (or diameter) squared. So the difference is approximately 12% ( [17 x 17] / [16 x 16] ). Scoopcalc2.xls file in Yahoo files has a section (Miscellaneous Sheet, lower left) that calculates the engine hp used for different flywheel weights. Maybe I'll add a section to approximately calculate rwhp lost due to tire/wheel weight.

re: the rotational mass
Granted the 16" and 17" wheel alone are different size, but shouldn't the test include the combined mass of the wheel and tire? Thus how to figure the differences when the combined diameter of the comparisons is the same is the question.

AlanG

Wait, how much do our wheels weigh? I think that they are great because of the relatively big offset.

re: the rotational mass

You're correct. The wheel is only part of it. So the variation is somewhat less than 12% in the example I gave. The tire (tread) is the rest of it. The total moment of inertia is the sum of the two (wheel and tire). So if the tire is the same (assuming that all of the tire weight is in the tread which is not a bad assumption for comparative torque requirements) in both cases and assume all of the wheel weight is at the outer diameter (16" or 17", again a reasonable assumption for comparative purposes) then: It = [Ww/32.2 x Rw^2 (squared)] +[Wt/32.2 x Rt^2] where Ww is the weight in lbs of the wheel, Wt the weight of the tire, Rw the radius of the wheel (minus 1" for the lip) in feet, Rt the tread radius. There may be a multiplier factor of 1/2 for the whole thing but iirc the mutiplier factor is 1 for all the weight evenly concentrated at the outer edge. I'll look it up when I go to work and try to add it to scoopcalc2 in the next day or so. If anyone interested is still reading this; T = It x alpha, where T is the torque required to accelerate the wheel/tire combo whose moment of inertia is It at alpha rpm/60s (s=seconds). example with made up convenient numbers: u calc It = 2 (slugs are the units iirc). If it takes 4 seconds to accelrate the wheel from 1200 rpm/60 (or 20 rps) to 3600 rpm/60 (60 rps) then alpha = (60-20)/4 = 10 rps/s and u used 2 x 10 = 20 lb-ft of torque to accelerate one wheel/tire or 80 lb-ft to accelerate all four tires.

Yep, that's why so many guys who go to larger wheels (especially those 19-20 inch SUV wheels) feel their cars(suvs) accelerate much slower. I can't even imagine having 60-70 lbs of tire/wheel to spin per corner !

Unless its just for cruising, I usually try to tell people to get the very lightest wheels they can afford, if they are going to larger wheels, otherwise they may be unhappy with performance. Its really hard to get a tire much lighter from brand to brand, but with wheels you can shave some significant weight by keeping it as narrow as reasonable, and light manuf. design. Put a set of Hoosier 225/50-14 race tires on our stock wheels, and the car will feel like it lost 400 lbs and suddenly has reflexes like a miata.

Don L.
'84 5mge