Ideas for Wheels???

[WESHOOT2]

Lighter than stock?

Perfect......

[Northernstar]

Oh yeah, weight is def an important factor. But price is usually inverse proportional to the weight though. The lighter the wheel, the higher the price.

[11zukizashi]

I think the TSWs were something like 18lbs vs 28lbs for the factory 18s on the SE ... Cant wait to throw them on

[murcod]

Hers doenst have any side moldings so all there really is is the turn signal below the mirror and the exhaust.. shouldnt cause any issue

Don't forget the big "S" on the grille and all the badges on the rear end. There's quite a bit of chrome on them.

[SuzukiGirl14]

The car is hopefully getting de-badged.

[11zukizashi]

Just thought id shed some light on the importance of wheel weight for anyone whos wondering. Here is a write up from nissan forums:

Unsprung Weight - Part 2

By: Eric Albert

Introduction

In the first part of this series, we took a look at the effects of high unsprung weight on suspension and handeling. In this part, we will look at rotating mass. Be careful not to confuse unsprung mass with rotating mass. Reducing both is good, but they are not the same. Let's take a look.

Rotational Inertia (or Momentum)

Rotational inertia is a concept a bit more difficult to deal with than unsprung weight. Inertia can be thought of as why a car wants to keep rolling once moving, or remain in place once stopped (unless you forget to set the parking brake on that hill). I believe the terms momentum and inertia are interchangeable. The term “flywheel effect” also refers to these concepts. In a car, there are a number of rotating masses which require energy to accelerate. Up front, ignoring the internal engine components like the crankshaft, we have to worry about the flywheel, clutch assembly, gears, axles, brake rotors and wheel/tire. Out back its a little simpler (for FWD) with just the brakes and wheel/tire contributing most of the mass.

The more mass an object has, the more energy it takes to accelerate it. To accelerate a rolling object such as a wheel, you must both accelerate its mass plus overcome its rotational inertia. As for braking, you must overcome its rotational inertia plus decelerate its mass. By reducing the weight of the vehicle's rotational mass, lightweight wheels provide more responsive acceleration and braking.

Before continuing with our informal analysis here, I want to point out something very important about rotational inertia. We’ve all seen the ice skating move where the skater starts spinning. She pulls her arms in and speeds up, then extends them again and slows down. Why is this? Well, the further a mass is from the center of rotation, the faster it must travel for a given angular speed (how many degrees of an arc it traverses per time unit). The faster anything moves, the more energy it has, so when the arms are pulled in, conservation of energy says that the rotation rate must increase due to equal energy being applied to the same mass over a smaller diameter. Applying this to wheels and tires, which have most of their mass spread as far as possible from the rotation center, I think you’ll agree that it naturally takes more energy to accelerate them. Example: Take a two identical masses, but one is a solid disk of diameter D, the other is a ring of diameter 2D. The ring will require more force to accelerate it (in a rotational manner). Therefore a heavier rim with a smaller diameter could have less rotational mass than a lighter rim of a larger size, and accelerate faster with the same force applied.

The effect of rotating mass can be calculated using Moment of Inertia (MOI). MoI is related to not only the mass of the rotating object, but the distribution of that mass around the rotational center. The further from the center, the higher the MoI. The higher the MoI, the more torque required to accelerate the object. The higher the acceleration, the higher the torque required.

Because of this, the weight of rotating mass such as wheels and tires on a car have a bigger effect on acceleration than static weight such as on the chassis on a car. When purchasing new wheels and tires for a performance car, it can be useful to compare the effects of different wheel and tire combinations. This is especially true when considering upgrading to larger wheels or tires on a car.

The use of light-weight alloys in wheels reduces rotational mass. This means that less energy will be required to accelerate the wheel. Given that each pound of rotational mass lost provides an equivalent performance gain as a 10 pound reduction in vehicle weight, the benefits of light alloy wheels on vehicle performance cannot be overlooked.
For example:
A reduction in the weight of the rim/tire assembly of 5lbs x 4 (all around the car) is equivalent to a 200lb weight reduction in vehicle weight (thats worth 0.200 in the 1/4 mile)

So What's the Point?

The point of this discussion is as follows: There is a great deal of rotational mass to deal with in a car and tires and wheels may only make up half of it. Estimates for weight (o.k. for comparison since they’re all in the same gravity field, therefore the mass would be a similar ratio)
Front: Rear:
Wheel/tire: 30-35 lbs each 30-35 lbs each
Flywheel: 15-20 lbs
Clutch: 15 lbs
Halfshafts: 7-10 lbs each
Gears: 5-7 lbs
Rotors: 3-5 lbs 3-5 lbs
Misc: 3-5 lbs 3-5 lbs
------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: 115-148 lbs 76-90 lbs

So a couple pounds here and there on wheels and tires will make a difference, but that difference is magnified because that weight is placed further from the axis of rotation than any other mentioned (remember the ice skater). All these masses must be accelerated, so any reduction is a good thing. Now you know why we always say don't get those 18" rims for your civic. Not only are the heavier, they have a larger overall diameter. Even with lower profile tires, most plus sizing leaves us with a slightly larger wheel.

[murcod]

Here's a couple of related articles:
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/tec ... techid=108
http://www.modified.com/tech/modp-0906- ... ewall.html

I changed to lighter rims/ tyres on my last vehicle and saved 4kg per rim/ tyre. In all honesty the biggest benefit I noticed was improved grip off the line (due more to me downsizing the rim by 1" so larger tyre sidewall height and fitting more track orientated tyres.)

If SuzukiGirl14 is planning on taking her car to a track it might be important? The strength of the rim is probably more important as you don't want the rim bending when hitting pot holes.

[SuzukiGirl14]

I decided on a wheel, but unfortunatly it is heavier than the stock rim. I couldnt find the exact weight of the 17" alloy rims but these new wheels have an average of 25. As mentioned above, I'm not trying to spend alot of money but these wheels have been the only ones that I truely liked. Will this be a major issue on my car?

[11zukizashi]

Here's a couple of related articles:
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/tec ... techid=108
http://www.modified.com/tech/modp-0906- ... ewall.html

I changed to lighter rims/ tyres on my last vehicle and saved 4kg per rim/ tyre. In all honesty the biggest benefit I noticed was improved grip off the line (due more to me downsizing the rim by 1" so larger tyre sidewall height and fitting more track orientated tyres.)

I find this hard to believe. I can feel a difference between the se and gts wheels which is only 3 lbs. Are you sure about your numbers? AIso your second bit makes no sense. sidewall has nothing to do with grip unless your car produces enough torque to use the tire as a launch spring.

[murcod]

Here's a couple of related articles:
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/tec ... techid=108
http://www.modified.com/tech/modp-0906- ... ewall.html

I changed to lighter rims/ tyres on my last vehicle and saved 4kg per rim/ tyre. In all honesty the biggest benefit I noticed was improved grip off the line (due more to me downsizing the rim by 1" so larger tyre sidewall height and fitting more track orientated tyres.)

I find this hard to believe. I can feel a difference between the se and gts wheels which is only 3 lbs. Are you sure about your numbers? AIso your second bit makes no sense. sidewall has nothing to do with grip unless your car produces enough torque to use the tire as a launch spring.

You're also comparing 17" to 18" wheels between SE and GTS - so there's more than just a weight difference (eg. 20mm wider tyres for the GTS, 8" rim width vs 7" etc.) I went from 205/45R16 to 205/50R15- so same width at least in tyres (and rims.)

Ever noticed what sort of tyres drag cars use? They've got huge sidewalls.

Here's an article discussing it:

Larger sidewalls allow better ride quality, better straight line launch, braking and do not necessarily decrease grip but may make the car handle less precisely. In other words, the sidewall flexes so the steering response will be slower and you get a lot more “roll” in the bends. Too big of a sidewall can cause excessive tire temperatures due to a lot of flexing about and possible failure in race conditions so it still is ideal to keep relatively low profile sidewalls on performance applications as we mentioned earlier.

You’ll notice that drag racing slicks always have very tall sidewalls. You never see low profile drag slicks. This is because when a drag car launches, the tire actually deforms and ripples up to create an even fatter patch of rubber on the ground and to generate ‘bite’ into the ground. The smaller the sidewall you use, the more likely you will spin your tires off the line. Taller sidewall tires can generally bite harder both under braking and acceleration.

http://www.tuneruniversity.com/blog/201 ... rformance/

and another:

The Nitto NT05R 20-inch tire is a 315/35R20, with a 28.74-inch overall diameter and a 12.48-inch width, far from the 10.5 tire that many street car classes require. That 28.74-inch diameter means you have about four inches of sidewall (28.74-20=8.74/2= 4.37” of sidewall), compared to the same diameter tire in a 15-inch wheel, which would yield 6.5 inches of sidewall. That extra two inches of sidewall is a lot of room for extra traction.

Radial tire sidewalls may be stiff, but they will still flex a little, providing the wider contact patch that you want. When at all possible, run the smallest wheel that your brakes will allow. This maximizes the sidewall height, putting more power to the ground. It may not “look” as cool, but the quicker timeslip looks even better.

http://www.stangtv.com/tech-stories/whe ... g-radials/

I went from not being able to use full throttle in first gear, to not having any wheel spin except in the wet.