I came to the same conclusion. I shaved 4lbs per wheel switching from the factory cast to monobloc forged wheels, and I didn't notice much difference driving around the street and canyons. I added too many mods at once to isolate the feedback of the lighter wheel by itself, but it didn't feel as drastic as I expected. My wallet was definitely lighter though! 😀
I removed my stock mazda 5 five spoke, which weighed 24.9 lbs each. And installed a set of Miata club v spoke wheels that weighed 17.5 each, the difference in handling and grip was pretty noticeable. The real ride quality improved too , as did braking and turn in. If you can save 5 or More lbs per wheel you will feel the difference in a positive way. It looks better to with about a 10 mm offset that widens the stance.
Me too, love Mazda. I'm on my second 6. I've looked for a speed 6 but they are getting hard to find. Thanks for the videos. Nicely presented with no spin, pun intended,haha.
But unsprung weight is also important because it reduces the effort of your suspension, making it more sensitive. When the wheel hits a bump, there is a lot more momentum for the spring and shock on the upstroke and a lot more effort to push back on the downstroke (inertia). Thus less strain and makes the suspension last longer. So it's kinda important as well?
In drag racing, a general rule used(for most average cars) is that any 100 lbs of mass removed from the car is worth 0.1 second off the 1/4 mile time. When it comes to rotational mass, every 25 lbs is worth 0.1 second as well. This includes all rotating items..... Wheels, tires, brakes, axles, driveshafts, flywheel, clutches, balancers, crankshaft..... It all adds up. However..... You still need enough material in these to do the job & do it safely. Is 1/2 lb of wheel weight going to affect the time, sure, not a lot, but if it costs hundreds of dollars or puts the part at risk of failure, it's not worth it to most.
I'll add that I bracket race, so weight isn't as big of a concern as consistency, durability & just getting the job done. Some racers still go after weight saving in huge ways but it costs $$$ in most cases, other than just removing unnecessary parts which is free. I could easily save 40+ lbs on my wheels alone, but it will cost $1200, and only get me 0.2 seconds. Not worth it.
@Fu Nguyenwhen it comes to wheels & tires, they all accelerate the same, front or rear, mass is mass. Unless you plan on spinning them a lot i.e. burnouts or drifting...
I tried light racing wheels on my MR2 SW20 and several things to note: 1. It would break traction in 1st, annoyingly so because that killed the awesome take-off traction it had. 2. Over potholes it was a dream. I could literally go over potholes at a decent speed and the suspension would just sort everything out. I eventually went back to the bigger heavier wheels. I guess with my particular setup and not taking into account wheel widths and compounds etc 1st gear would just hook reliably each and every time. Unfortunately potholes would sound like you crashed into something at anything faster than a crawl.
Totally missed the most important aspect for a road car - ride quality. Heavier wheels won't move over bumps as easily, making a harsher ride. And this can play into suspension control too (taking longer to slow down, reverse and recontact the road).
I don't know, I typically use steel wheels for my daily commuter with a soft suspention. The faster I go over speed bumps the less I feel them. But if I go over the speed bump slow I feel them a lot more. Where is the inverse is true with light wheels. Suspension being the same set up. Soft. But I lose a lot of traction with light wheels and a soft suspension. Versus heavy wheels and a soft suspension. But if I use a tight suspension with light wheels or heavy wheels every bump jars my spine. Having heavier wheels with a soft suspension is the way to go for ride quality. But if you have a tight suspension it won't matter whether you have light or heavy wheels. Your ride will suck either way.😢
I recently switched wheels up from 18x9 245 front/18x10 265 rear to 18x7.5 245 front/18x7.5 255 rear It was a profound difference in driveability and response of the motor. My first set of wheels were 120lbs for all 4 and my current set is only 84lbs total. So a big difference in unsprung weight (rotational mass) was achieved.
Had an Altima hybrid line up with me the other day (yea, I know): four big guys inside, chrome 20" wheels. Combined, that's about a half ton added to their car. I'm not exactly in prime physical condition, but I could jog faster than that thing accelerated.
Long story short. I somehow ended up with a car with OEM 15"'s steelies and "amazing" 17"'s alloys, low profile tires, bla bla bla! The whole shebang! Honestly they looked more or less nice! Although they were also stupidly heavy, add the wrong offset, etc. AND worse of all the car behaved like a pig! The worst imaginable made it literally undrivable with a terrible behavior! Cure... The good old OEM steelies! My God what a world of difference! Excellent braking, excellent corner behavior. WAY lighter! The entire pose on the road was exactly as predicted by OEM engineers! Live and learn the stupid kids here dump money on ignorance, because it looks "nice". That's it! ;-)
Cornering, acceleration and braking improved a lot after I switched from 25 lbs stock wheels to 17 lbs Konig Ultraform wheels on my Scion. I do not race, but my commute is way more enjoyable now.
My 2019 Mazda3 HB AWD 18s is 26.8lbs. Stupidly heavy. I put on Pirelli P Zero AS Plus UHP which are 19.2lbs vs OE Toyo A40 eco passenger tires that are 23lbs. Hug difference in feel, especial when the tire's polar motion is furthest from the center hub. Reducing weight furthest from the center.. Long chirped the other night taking a left hand corner at the light, even with AWD. Makes the car feel more sportier and responsive than before. I have to get some light weight wheels now. I'm in my early 40s, I probably should invest my money in other things, but I love spirited driving on the twisties while having some comfort and practicality.
As someone just starting (kinda) with the car scene in general these kinds of channels are a gift from God himself. Do you know how much of googling and info collecting you saved me from? I love you all
have fun with the wheel and tire specs for your own car. I've spent far more hours than I'd like to admit on finding the correct wheel-tire ratio and bolt pattern. this will be a nightmare especially if you are like me and your car isn't listed on websites like tire rack.
RPF1 are not even forged. They have Little material for a cast wheel that's why they are light but it means they bend easily. Forged wheels saves more than a kilo per wheel if the same strength of the wheel is kept.
Steeda did a dyno video on lighter wheels. Each wheel was 12 lbs lighter than stock and they gained 6 hp. Only 2 wheels running of coarse, so 24 lbs for the 2 wheels added 6 hp or 1/4 hp per pound
Yes, wheel weight is important. A large, heavy flywheel is harder to spin from stationary and harder to stop once momentum is up than a smaller flywheel. I prefer smaller wheels generally (I like small, lightweight sportscars and zipping through forest roads - calling for constantly changing speeds and direction), but I do have to admit - bigger wheels allow for larger brakes and that is definitely a positive when high performance tuning.
I just replaced my factory wheels and tires (20x8.5 w/ 245/40R20 Potenza's) on my electric car with Enkei`s RPF1 18x8 and 235/50R18 Michelin Energy Saver's. My weight at each corner went from 65lbs to 43lbs. The resulting range improved by 30%-52% depending on my driving style at the time and oh... my acceleration is very noticeable. Although this is more of a racing/sport thread here, the fact that I have seen a dramatic improvement in efficiency confirms to me that weight does matter.
That's super cool to hear as I am very interested in getting an electric car and did not know how putting aftermarket wheels would effect acceleration, gas mileage etc!
my commuter car is 2100lbs and has 94hp. my stock wheel and tire combination was around 60lbs per, I reduced this 33lbs each by switching to a forged set and lighter tires. The improvement in efficiency is noticeable as is the handling, and this is just a basic commuter car I drive like an old man.
As a car guy but mainly a cyclist(the sporty overly serious type) i can really relate to that. Although i never heard somone say that unsprung mass is 15times worse than unsprung weight, many say that its at least a few multiple times. The rotational mass matters in my case more since the ratio between rider weight and power to the wheel weight is quite diffrent to cars. Many state that saving 300g on your wheels is like saving 600-900g on your frame. I can agree with twice the factor, but not more than that. For example: My old training wheelset weighs 2,1kg. My newer one 1,9kg. Apart from sightly higher stiffness, everything stays the same. But acceleration and tracking feels so much better. I could easily get some 1,2kg wheelsets that would make an even bigger diffrence. Unsprung mass is a bit more difficult. I changed from a very heavy 1,1kg front tire to a lighter 850g one. Fork stays the same. The suspension reacted noticeably better to smaller bumps and vibration, but bigger hits were just as uncomfortable. But im talking about very minor diffrences. You would have to have 500gish tires to really feel the unsprung mass get less. Sure, your suspension is working more, but is actually less active. In my eyes is the whole brabble about unsprung mass only for the ones that need to shave split seconds
The benefits of lower unsprung weight is more noticeable on roads that are not as smooth. Less unsprung weight is easier for the dampers to accurately control. This translates to the tires making or maintaining better traction with the road surface. Lighter wheel/tire packages also have better gyroscopic properties (motorcyclist know this all to well) making it easier to transition steering angles.
Something to consider in rotational mass is tire weight, something ppl don’t necessarily think about. A similar tire while 2lbs lighter will make more difference than saving 2lbs on a wheel due to the weight being further from the center
I can feel the improvement switching from 23lb OE Toyo A40 eco tires vs the 19.2lbs Pirelli P Zero AS Plus UHP on my Mazda3 HB AWD (BP). The polar rotation being furthest from the hub is a huge benefit to acceleration, handling, steering, and braking. Bumps are not as harsh and it's way more comfortable.
@@lil2.74 Polar rotation is extremely important since it's furthest from the hub. You can get lightweight forged wheels, but you won't get it's fully benefit if you're using heavy tires.
@DroneStrike1776 Ya thats exactly what I said, weight matters more the further away from center. The furtherest from center would be the tire. Thats why I run a 255/50r20 Continental Extreme Contact DWS 06 plus on my F150, 30 inch overall diameter is the shortest I am willing to go, that is the lightest 30 inch diameter tire I have found at 30lbs. It also has a very high speed rating and gets very good traction in various conditions. And it survived rugged mountain roads during deer season, not one puncture.
I just recently found out that wheel weight is very important a month or two ago upgraded my wheels from 18 X 7 and 1/2 to 18 x 8 and that half an inch sure did a lot of weight my car now takes longer to to accelerate and my fuel economy has went down if I had known then what I know now I would have just stayed at the regular with
I had a 98 Jetta that I put 17” tsw imolas on in place of the factory wheels. The handling felt better but it felt slower and took away about 7-8 mpg. Not sure what the weight difference was between the two but it must have been a bit to rob that many mpgs. I loved the look and kept them on for years, to me the look was more important than performance because it wasn’t a fast car anyway.
I have a G37 IPL and when I got new tires that were 2 pounds lighter than before the first thing I noticed was how much lighter the steering got, so I can only imagine how much of a difference lighter wheels will make. They are 27 up front and 28 in the rear. Hopefully there will be some good black Friday sales this year......
Went from 14in steel wheels with 195 all seasons, to 15in Enkei RPF01s with 205s and there was a noticeable difference in acceleration, braking and turn in. There was about an 11lb difference between the two setups.
I used to have an SRT-4 and the difference between the stock wheels and the set of forged wheels I had for it WAS TREMENDOUS. They were 7 lbs lighter a piece than the stock wheels and that car was a handful with them lol.
I ordered some wheels for my car that are 8 pounds lighter per wheel and this is the type of comment I wanted to see lol. I hope I have similar results as you.
@@BunnyBUNGALO it’s crazy how much of a difference it makes lol. It doesn’t sound like much but you definitely notice the difference in a front wheel drive car lol.
I just ordered a set of forged magnesium monoblock wheels for my 370Z from Litespeed Racing in LA. They're going to shave about 10 lbs off of the weight of the Rays forged aluminum wheels that are on the car. I also just got a set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires that are several pounds lighter than the Bridgestone Potenza tires that were the OEM fitment from Nissan. The combination should improve the suspension dynamics noticeably when it's installed in about 2 months, after the wheels get built. In about 6 months to a year I'm going to need a brake job and I'm going to replace the Akebono steel one-piece rotors with a set of Akebono 2-piece rotors with aluminum hats. These should take off another 10 lbs on the front corners and 5 lbs on the rears. Ultimately, I'm looking at shaving about 23 lbs off of the front corners and about 18 lbs from the rears, as compared to the stock OEM fitment for my car which is a 2019 Nissan 370Z 6MT with the sport pkg.
It's not only wheel weight. But the tire+wheel weight. I had 17x8 PF01 + 235/40R17 Ziis weight 43lb each corner, vs factory 17x7 and 205/45R17 potenza S04 weight 37lbs. Factory set up is noticeably lighter, engine have less load, rev up faster. Although I like the wide wheel look and ultimate lateral grip of my 17x8 set up, car feels faster with 17x7s. But I only had 160hp. If you have 500hp, I doubt you can feel the difference as much.
The other main thing when trying to get a fast car is areodynamics. Some people with those fast cars use weight reduction to get from 10 sec car to a 9 sec car with weight redux. Thats huge thats like adding 100 to 200hp to them.
I went from 30lb wheel/tires to 35lb ones on a 2200lb 1991 Toyota AE92 and it was dramatically different. Acceleration was way slower and I started getting 24mpg down from 30mpg. Really surprised me. Granted the car only has around 100hp but the heavier setup really ruined the fun and zippy feel of the car around town and in the forest roads.
I got a 2018 ram sport a few months ago. It came with the R/T style 22x9 wrapped in Fortera 285 45R22. They weigh in at 90 lbs each. I'd love to shave off some poundage. But there are so few options for a sport touring type concave style of wheel for a dodge ram. It's been lowered 3/5 so the big offroad wheels with a -50 offset are out of the question. LOL!
I saw a study somewhere that showed dyno charts indicating that lighter wheels actually caused the car to "gain" horsepower. edit: Thanks everyone, I know that wheels don't give you hp. That's why I put quotes around gain lol
Trevor M I think it's more of a demonstration of how HP is lost trying to spin heavier tires. So really the overall HP doesn't change it's the fact you have more usable HP
Not technically a gain in horsepower you're just getting rid of some limiting factors of drivetrain loss. Same thing would happen if you got lighter drivetrain parts, and it's part of the reason of why supercars and hypercars are so fast and expensive. They spend more money manufacturing stronger and lighter pieces to reduce limiting factors.
Its something to consider when choosing mods: adding power (increase air/fuel/spark at engine/exhaust, enhancing speed) or subtracting power restriction (decrease sprung weight, drivetrain weight, and/or wheel weight, enhancing speed as well as all other actions of the car)
Enkei states on their website that for each pound of unsprung weight saved its equivalent to 20 pounds of vehicle weight saved. There’s probably a limit to this but I’m guessing Enkei has done the research/testing. I just installed some 18x8 Advan Racing RS2’s on my 2013 Audi S4. I weighed the RS2’s without tyres and the stock wheels without tyres (same size 18x8) and they were 8.1kg and 12.7kg respectively. That’s 4.6kg per wheel or ~55% saved per wheel. I haven’t taken them for a decent drive yet because I just installed them today but even just driving home the car felt a tiny bit more responsive to throttle inputs. It could be all placebo but it felt good and they look way better than stock so I’m happy.
OEM: 225/60R18 @7" => 245/45R20 @8.5" that was a lighter wheel despite the size increase. It's not an exact 1:1 comparison because of different tire brand, size, width, etc. but the biggest thing I noticed was when the car was coasting on the highway (rolling w/o throttle), once up to speed, it took longer for the heavier wheels to slow down, and the lighter ones slowed down notably faster. 0-60 and 60-0 was not notably different. Initial testing of 60-0 was actually worse, but that may have had something to do with alignment and setups (more camber = worse braking). Cornering was also a big difference, but that had more to do with the width of tire than weight.
Yeah man any time you start obviously stancing your car or giving it wider tires and filling that wheel well you are gonna experiencing some changes when driving the car day to day. It is the price you pay man!
I noticed my car's absorbers worked a lot better when I changed to lightweight rims. On top of that I used to run 25mm spacers with stock rims and unsurprisingly it caused the wheels to lock up a lot due to how heavily it is, so much so the car had a bit of negative camber. Needless to say my abs no longer kicks in as often, with these new rims the car steers a lot faster, goes and stops quicker, the car bounces back to original height a lot quicker. Additional benefits include, better gas mileage, cool looking car. I think i shaved at least 8 pounds of weight off each wheel.
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I WILL USE MY STEEL WHEELS FOR NOW. THEN IN THE FUTURE UPGRADE TO AN ALLOY WHEEL. GREAT VIDEO AND EDUCATION. THANKS FOR SHARING. I LEARNED SO MUCH.
Well like my truck you can drop about 7-10lbs wheel/tire with proper after market, and math for rotational mass for it works out to about 2.4to1 for every lb removed or equivalent non rot mass savings of 60-100lbs.
My rims are 25lbs per and I would like to go to 18lbs per not only for performance but because I don't like lugging fat ass rims around. I will be using my factory rims for winter tires and my new rims for summers. 6 to 7 pounds per wheel is pretty huge in the end that's a decent bit of weight. Edit: Apparently almost all the GTI stock rims are heavy.
Thank you! Most stock rims are cast rims and weigh in at 30 - 35lb. Going with a Rohana is 25lb. Thats 40lbs off rotational mass of the vehicle transmission fly wheel, and other related components. I wish you would of talked about that difference in the example? 35lb rims to a 25 lb. Correct to say it would add in speed take off and reduce engine/trans energy . That is pretty huge per wheel factor. I called FITMENT and talked to one of your guys about going with a 20 Rohana, and a 245 40 20 instead of a 245 35 20, to have more side wall for better driving and avoiding pot hole damage. It only adds a 1lb extra in tire weight, adds more revolutions in the tire revolution per mile, but saves 10 lbs per wheel= 40lbs total off the start...wouldn't that work just the same as going with a 245 35 20 and a heavy 20 inch rim? And wouldn't it be better to just stick with a lighter 19 inch rim, and 245 40 19 saving in rotation mass? Thank you!!
Great points we can certainly have videos that go more in depth for you guys curious about more information! As always you can shoot us an email at wheels@fitmentindustries.com and we can help you with your fitment!
I=cMRR. I- the energy required to change the angular momentum of a rotating object, is equal to it's Mass, multiplied by it's Radius from the center if rotation Squared, multiplied by a constant that's determined by the shape of the object. In other words, diameter affects the amount of energy to accelerate and decelerate the wheel as well as mass. Since the general shape of the wheel/tire combination will not change much, the constant won't change. However radius and mass can be changed to some extent... Lighter weight wheels/tires that are of a diameter closer to the brake caliper will require less energy to accelerate and decelerate. So... those big, heavy wheels suck if you want to go fast or be efficient. Look at big rig tractor trailers.... They run alloy wheels because it saves fuel over millions of miles accelerating & decelerating that huge mass every time it moves. They don't just do it to look nice, it saves $$$ long term.
My daily is a painfully stock (so far) 03 Corolla. The stock 15 inch steel wheels are 20ish pounds each. Found a set of 15 inch Prius alloys that weigh around 14 pounds each. Removed the tires from the steel wheels and mounted them on the alloys, so only weight change was the wheels. Around ~6 pounds per wheel, 24ish pounds total reduction. There is a noticeable difference in ride comfort, braking, steering and acceleration, as well as a SMALL up tick in fuel economy. Obviously not a performance application or car, but the difference surprised me as my only goal was replacing the steel wheels for aesthetic reasons lol. For the ~$150 spent on the wheels, lugnuts and switching tires over, it was absolutely worth it for my purposes. I imagine for a purpose built car, fine adjustments with smaller amounts of weight could be beneficial, but at such a cost that it may be not worth it.
I have oem style 44 Bmw alu wheels on my e46 coupe with 225/45 r17 tires.The mass of that wheel with tire is 21.1 kg.When I put winter tires (steel wheel/205/55 r16 mass is 17.1 kg)So....on that winter setup car is much easier to drive....better brakeing,better acceleration,better fuel economy.Only in corners is little bad for precision(winter tires are not good for sporty driving).So.....If you reduce rotacional mass.....you will be more happy with your car.
Yes, wheel weight matters. It might shave .004 seconds off your 1/4 mile. Sometimes, that matters. But in the aspect of normal driving and just having fun, no, it doesn't help you in anyway. In fact having heavier wheels can be beneficial too.
Big one people don't realize, as you said. The furthest from the hub to greater the effect. What's furthers from the hub, the tire. Do tires vary in weight? Hell yes. You can shave 2-4lbs from the most crucial area of rotating mass.
Tyres are also different weight. If you are looking the lightest options. Remember to weight tyres also. Some wheel might get you save a 1lbs, but then are tyres that can do the same. It's the overall weight. No just 1 of 2.
I think you missed a HUGE ASPECT when talking of wheel weights! Most of us buy it due to the "Quality" of the wheel. Yes the weight reduction is an added bonus but most people who drive track, drag/drift prefer forged wheels cuz they are more durable than cast wheels. "Mainstream" cast wheels "snap" and cause more catastrophic damages than forged wheels.
loud Ring well, less moment of inertia generally equates better accel, better braking, and better MPG. Indirectly, it could also equate to longer lasting suspension.
you wont necessarily get better mpg, if you fitted a 15" wheel over a 13" to keep the same rolling radius the 15" tyre will have a shorter side wall, shorter side wall = less tyre deflection= lower rolling resistance.
I bought new wheels and tires on my car😎. Tires were garbage on OEM wheels, I bought Continental DWS06 Tires, daily driver G35 coupe. great Summer rain winter combo. Sitting on Rohana RC10's.
There‘s a lad who did some tests with standard alloys vs OZ ultraleggera and he shaved 0.3 seconds off of a 3rd gear pull from 30-70mph. This is a very big difference; especially considering he did that with a fiat 124. check him out.
On i30N the difference between stock and performance wheels of same size is 10-12 lb per wheel. I didn't weight the wheels, but even they say that wheels on project c version o.z. wheels are 22 kg(48.4 lb) lighter in total and the difference between last few pounds is doubled in price
Wheel weight would matter for both racers and eco junkies. I'd imagine a great long term fuel cost saving with lighter wheels. Those eco boxes also have tyres that aren't as wide which would reduce friction of the tyre against the road. At the expense of traction ofc
My stock wheels 30 lbs without the tires. I’m looking at wheels that’s are close to 17 pounds. I’m guessing that’s going to make a pretty big difference cutting the weight almost in half.
Had heavy af stock wheels, changed to lightweight forged wheels. No difference whatsoever, not even a measurable difference in acceleration 🙈 Might have been better in corners, but I didn't really notice any positive effect at all from them. Installed a lightweight flywheel on another car however, that made a huge difference
I have these nice 18" 5 spoke polished centerline wheels from early 2000s. "Monsoon storm". Used to be on my first car a 96 z24 those things are LIGHT af. Like 16lbs each. I wish like hell theyd fit my 18 WRX I'd powdercoat them and slap em on 😅😅 You could totally tell with those things vs the stock 16s. That cavvy was a fun car. Hate fwd but was a great first car in many levels
Review on lighter wheels on bmw 318i e90 - Went from 16inch stock wheels to 18inch lightweight - Went from runflat winter tires too summer tires - Saved 4.9kg per wheel total My theory is thar on less strong and faster cars you will notice the difference easier. When my friend (80kh) enters the car, I immediately feel a difference. It feels like the car is less responsive and worse in Acceleration. Swapping to lightweight rims gave me the opposite feeling. As of I removed myself from the car. The whole daily driving becomes a lot more fun. A lot more responsive to the pedal. You clearly feel the engine has to work less for the same result. It slightly accelerates faster. But I think its mainly the feeling of more torque and responsiveness that gives that feeling. Bumps etc feel a lot smoother. Drives like a boat now. In terms of handling it was already good, and I think the handling just got better mainly because I got new tires on it. Lightest tires I found were turanza t005 8.7kg Rims are allegerrita hlt 18inch: 8.4kg. If you can afford the swap go for it. Makes the daily drive a lot more fun. I would say you need minimun 3-5kg savings to feel the difference. And I assume you feel the difference on less powerfull engines faster. Goodluck
I swapped to f30 five bar rims on my e90 328 It was mild better driving I swapped to a lighter tire which also added into the equation, but every time I drive my moms 328 Forget it!!! It’s just not as fun
I just put some new wheels on my WRX. They’re about 5 lbs lighter each. I noticed the car is a little more responsive. Would I do it again? Yes, the Motegi wheels I bought are only about $700 for the set and I don’t care about blingy bling or hella flush. @Fitment Industries if you guys haven’t done a video about the effects of wider wheels and aggressive offsets (tramlining and turning circle) please do!
It's obviously only important depending on what you drive and how you use it. If you're in a high performance family sedan where at least two to three people are in it 99% of the time adding 100+ pounds each, doesn't matter at all what your wheel weight is. Most carry at least one other body in their "performance" car when trying to show what it can do, and that's already defeating the purpose of the car. Real world people. Real world.
the unsprung writeups i have seen are referring to rotational mass. i think it is the cute way of saying the things that spin and in that sense the reduction of rotational mass is greater then the static mass.
Rotational mass is key. Great to save weight with wheels, but look at the tires first. These factors seem to make a bigger difference with an AWD car. We've dyno'd lightweight Baer rotors, along with light wheels/tires in the Evolution community and saw consistent gains. On my own Evo IX, we dropped close to 35lbs of rotational mass. It's a difference you can feel. Not necessarily as speed, rather as a more nimble, more tossablle machine.
Do spacers/adapters affect the bore weight as mentioned in the video? Alex mentions forged because it lessens the weight at the wheels center, which is more important, so would adapters be adding weight to this area?
Thanks for the reply! So I shouldn’t have to worry to much about the weight of the adapter? I am getting konig rennforms 18x8 5x114.3 for my brz because they are lightweight and they look really nice. Also very affordable for such a lightweight 18 diameter wheel.
A major determinant of performance is unsprung weight to sprung weight ratio. If you have super lightweight car and horrifically heavy sprung mass, getting anywhere near decent handling with passive suspension is completely impossible. For an extreme example, big foots have crazy heavy wheels on relatively lightweight tube frame chassis. They struggle to keep the car under control with crazy suspension setups. A practical example is a semi truck. The unsprung mass weighs even more than the chassis.
Just put cast wheels on my 97 Sunfire Coupe. Boy are they potentially too heavy for the car. It's tough to get going and tough to slow down and handles like poop. Looks badass tho
You didn’t mention gas mileage. So if I have the exact same car that gets 30 miles to the gallon with stock tires and rims, and I do a long drive (the whole tank,) through a few towns with signal lights, will it make any appreciable difference if my wheel weight is reduced by a few pounds?
Some people like to use stock size wheels with relatively thick sidewall instead of upsized wheels with thinner side walls because rubber is lighter than metal. (Given you do the correct aspect ratios and the whole wheel/tire diameter stays the same and disregard the thicker side wall flex during hard cornering for now) Is rubber that much lighter than, say, forged metal?? I work at a luxury car dealership and change tires rather often, some times I pick up a wheel by itself and surprise myself how light the wheel is, but it feels much heavier with the tires on, so it got me thinking.
I like the points this video makes without getting too technical. Rotational mass or rather rotational inertia is important but at the point that most cars have more than enough torque to spin up four rims a majority of power goes to moving the mass of vehicle itself. On the unsprung weight argument i would agree that it will only be noticeable on a track as lower unsprung mass allows the suspension system to reacted faster to changes in the road surface and regain/retain traction especially at high speeds. A video on car suspension would be cool, especially focusing on the correct ways to lower your car as stock geometry cannot simply just paired with shorter springs or coilovers without sacrifice.
Grassroots managed to knock off .29 sec 0-60 from 12lbs each corner. That's with a Miata NA 115hp and pathetic torque. I'm sure lighter cars with around 200hp/tq will hugely benefit from losing 12lbs, not just on the track. There's a video of an Fiat 124 with 16lbs OZ wheels vs stock 22lbs and he achieved over .30 sec better acceleration from 30-75 pulls in 3rd gear. Over three tenths is a lot when you consider that each run only takes 7 seconds. So it's not just on the track, it's road handling manners, steering, braking, potholes, and comfort you get from reducing unsprung weight. The only way you won't feel any benefit if your car makes a ton of power and is already heavy like an M3/4 or Mustang GT etc., unless you're driving a 5th gen Camaro SS with wheels weighing similar to the moon.
I saved 17 pounds per wheel by changing my 17X8 in. cast aluminum wheels and 235/55x17 tires to 16x7 in (stock size) 16.28 lb "flow forged" alloy Konigs w/225/60 -16 Goodyears. Difference of night and day with the same overall diameter. Better acceleration, better gas mileage, better cornering and braking. VERY "noticeable." difference. All other things being equal, Bigger wheels=heavier wheels + bigger & heavier tires= Higher rotational mass = s-l-o-w-e-r. Here's the formula: BW=Hw+B&Ht = HRM = VS (I don't work for Konig) I don't race or drift, these are on my daily driver, and I do sometimes drive hard and fast. Fitment Ind. is where I buy my wheels, but they are very hard to do business with, especially on the phone. They have great prices and a broad selection - as does CarID - excellent place to do business - great on the phone, excellent, personable, professional, helpful staff. But a little more $ than Fitment Ind. Tire rack is ok, but narrower selection and much higher prices.
Sorry for the delay on the phone there is only really a handful of people that handle all those calls, But glad to hear you enjoy our products. We would love to see you ride in our gallery sometime! bit.ly/2AG1bx1
I'd like to see some quantification to balance the abundance of qualified comments here. Differences in lateral grip, acceleration, braking, lap times, slalom speed, smoothness, durability...
Cars and Coffee dudes be like saving 6oz per wheel to shave a thousandth of a second off pulling into their parking space.
Rip 💀😂
David Mooney bahahaha!
Spat my drink out.
Havnt rant into a girl yet huh? Poor guy.
Car dudes be saving 6oz per wheel, but same dudes weigh 350 lbs.
I don't even bother running wheels, pure weight savings
Your comment made me laugh out loud : )
@@RideByNight me too
I came to the same conclusion. I shaved 4lbs per wheel switching from the factory cast to monobloc forged wheels, and I didn't notice much difference driving around the street and canyons. I added too many mods at once to isolate the feedback of the lighter wheel by itself, but it didn't feel as drastic as I expected. My wallet was definitely lighter though! 😀
Thanks for the awesome input!
Lmao
That lighter wallet will help with acceleration since you always have your wallet on you
daily driving no differenct, race, track, time attack, yes as mini second counts.
For real dude...
I removed my stock mazda 5 five spoke, which weighed 24.9 lbs each. And installed a set of Miata club v spoke wheels that weighed 17.5 each, the difference in handling and grip was pretty noticeable. The real ride quality improved too , as did braking and turn in. If you can save 5 or More lbs per wheel you will feel the difference in a positive way. It looks better to with about a 10 mm offset that widens the stance.
Nice man I myself am a Mazda guy I drive a Speed3! You should upload your ride to our gallery I would love to see your Mazda! bit.ly/2Ma4oca
Me too, love Mazda. I'm on my second 6. I've looked for a speed 6 but they are getting hard to find. Thanks for the videos. Nicely presented with no spin, pun intended,haha.
Yeah nice clean speed 6's are hard to find right now, And I see what you did there 👀😂
RPF1 solves all problems
Alex Rodriguez true
RPF1 vs TE37
Round 1.
F I G H T!
Boosted Fool you can buy rpf1 new still also cheaper
Boosted Fool There's no comparison. One's completely forged, one's not.
A good, cheap alternative to the rpf1 are 6uls; however, they have a bit more limited sizing.
But unsprung weight is also important because it reduces the effort of your suspension, making it more sensitive. When the wheel hits a bump, there is a lot more momentum for the spring and shock on the upstroke and a lot more effort to push back on the downstroke (inertia). Thus less strain and makes the suspension last longer.
So it's kinda important as well?
Very true.
So we should all buy 26" wheel right?
In drag racing, a general rule used(for most average cars) is that any 100 lbs of mass removed from the car is worth 0.1 second off the 1/4 mile time. When it comes to rotational mass, every 25 lbs is worth 0.1 second as well. This includes all rotating items..... Wheels, tires, brakes, axles, driveshafts, flywheel, clutches, balancers, crankshaft..... It all adds up. However..... You still need enough material in these to do the job & do it safely. Is 1/2 lb of wheel weight going to affect the time, sure, not a lot, but if it costs hundreds of dollars or puts the part at risk of failure, it's not worth it to most.
AndreS123_03 and that is why I don’t like carbon fiber drive shafts
@@flat6targa why? They are stronger than steel.
@@TheDarkToes less ductile
I'll add that I bracket race, so weight isn't as big of a concern as consistency, durability & just getting the job done. Some racers still go after weight saving in huge ways but it costs $$$ in most cases, other than just removing unnecessary parts which is free.
I could easily save 40+ lbs on my wheels alone, but it will cost $1200, and only get me 0.2 seconds. Not worth it.
@Fu Nguyenwhen it comes to wheels & tires, they all accelerate the same, front or rear, mass is mass. Unless you plan on spinning them a lot i.e. burnouts or drifting...
I tried light racing wheels on my MR2 SW20 and several things to note: 1. It would break traction in 1st, annoyingly so because that killed the awesome take-off traction it had. 2. Over potholes it was a dream. I could literally go over potholes at a decent speed and the suspension would just sort everything out.
I eventually went back to the bigger heavier wheels. I guess with my particular setup and not taking into account wheel widths and compounds etc 1st gear would just hook reliably each and every time. Unfortunately potholes would sound like you crashed into something at anything faster than a crawl.
Totally missed the most important aspect for a road car - ride quality. Heavier wheels won't move over bumps as easily, making a harsher ride. And this can play into suspension control too (taking longer to slow down, reverse and recontact the road).
Aspect ratio has a bigger affect on ride quality.
I don't know, I typically use steel wheels for my daily commuter with a soft suspention.
The faster I go over speed bumps the less I feel them.
But if I go over the speed bump slow I feel them a lot more.
Where is the inverse is true with light wheels.
Suspension being the same set up. Soft.
But I lose a lot of traction with light wheels and a soft suspension.
Versus heavy wheels and a soft suspension.
But if I use a tight suspension with light wheels or heavy wheels every bump jars my spine.
Having heavier wheels with a soft suspension is the way to go for ride quality.
But if you have a tight suspension it won't matter whether you have light or heavy wheels.
Your ride will suck either way.😢
I recently switched wheels up from
18x9 245 front/18x10 265 rear to
18x7.5 245 front/18x7.5 255 rear
It was a profound difference in driveability and response of the motor. My first set of wheels were 120lbs for all 4 and my current set is only 84lbs total. So a big difference in unsprung weight (rotational mass) was achieved.
That's awesome!
4x4forlyfe that’s cool I have a set of 17x8 225 on all four and it weighs 164lbs lol . I’m planing to hopefully reduce the weight by half
Had an Altima hybrid line up with me the other day (yea, I know): four big guys inside, chrome 20" wheels. Combined, that's about a half ton added to their car. I'm not exactly in prime physical condition, but I could jog faster than that thing accelerated.
255 on 7.5 wide? How does that look (link to pics)?
On my 2012 camaro SS I when from stock to Forgestar F14’s and save 8-10 pounds and it was pretty noticeable.
Biggest thing I noticed when I saved 5 poulds off a wheel in my car was the braking response. Felt way better.
That's awesome!
what about mpg?
Long story short. I somehow ended up with a car with OEM 15"'s steelies and "amazing" 17"'s alloys, low profile tires, bla bla bla! The whole shebang! Honestly they looked more or less nice! Although they were also stupidly heavy, add the wrong offset, etc. AND worse of all the car behaved like a pig! The worst imaginable made it literally undrivable with a terrible behavior!
Cure... The good old OEM steelies! My God what a world of difference! Excellent braking, excellent corner behavior. WAY lighter! The entire pose on the road was exactly as predicted by OEM engineers! Live and learn the stupid kids here dump money on ignorance, because it looks "nice". That's it! ;-)
@@crpth1ok boomer
Cornering, acceleration and braking improved a lot after I switched from 25 lbs stock wheels to 17 lbs Konig Ultraform wheels on my Scion. I do not race, but my commute is way more enjoyable now.
wow so even your stock Scion wheel weights a bit more than my stock 16" on my truck, think its around 23lbs? But it's 54lbs tire mounted.
@@NXT_LVL I listed wheel weight without the tire. Every pound of weight actually makes a big difference
My 2019 Mazda3 HB AWD 18s is 26.8lbs. Stupidly heavy. I put on Pirelli P Zero AS Plus UHP which are 19.2lbs vs OE Toyo A40 eco passenger tires that are 23lbs. Hug difference in feel, especial when the tire's polar motion is furthest from the center hub. Reducing weight furthest from the center.. Long chirped the other night taking a left hand corner at the light, even with AWD. Makes the car feel more sportier and responsive than before. I have to get some light weight wheels now. I'm in my early 40s, I probably should invest my money in other things, but I love spirited driving on the twisties while having some comfort and practicality.
@@DroneStrike1776 interesting. I never looked at the tire weight, just the rims. It was a great learning experience.
Some people at autox run stock wheels just because we are cheap asses. Tires are more important than lighter weight wheels. Oh and driving time.
We completely agree with tires! But this is for people who want to run good aftermarket ones as well!
Rotary forged is the best bang for the buck, dropped a tenth of second in the 1/4 mile after dropping 8lbs per wheel.
10/10 agree 🙌
for a dismal tenth of a second you're dropping $2000 more for a set of wheels lol... no thanks
@@alexsimon915 not really, rotary forged wheels are very inexpensive, Ive seen prices from $500(all 4) to $1300(all 4)
For what costs?, for what reason?.
1/10th of a second is negligible and lost in the noise of weather/humidity, road condition, tire wear/heat, etc.
As someone just starting (kinda) with the car scene in general these kinds of channels are a gift from God himself. Do you know how much of googling and info collecting you saved me from?
I love you all
have fun with the wheel and tire specs for your own car. I've spent far more hours than I'd like to admit on finding the correct wheel-tire ratio and bolt pattern. this will be a nightmare especially if you are like me and your car isn't listed on websites like tire rack.
RPF1 are not even forged. They have Little material for a cast wheel that's why they are light but it means they bend easily. Forged wheels saves more than a kilo per wheel if the same strength of the wheel is kept.
How is "God" responsible from someone's time and dedication to spread information? But I agree with you.
Sam M-L He guided me to the information I desired, and guided them on this path they are on
CROblazer420 I like your sense of humor.
Steeda did a dyno video on lighter wheels. Each wheel was 12 lbs lighter than stock and they gained 6 hp. Only 2 wheels running of coarse, so 24 lbs for the 2 wheels added 6 hp or 1/4 hp per pound
Note that most cars have four wheels to accelerate, so the gains would be doubled.
Bottom line... lighter is always better.
Yes, wheel weight is important. A large, heavy flywheel is harder to spin from stationary and harder to stop once momentum is up than a smaller flywheel. I prefer smaller wheels generally (I like small, lightweight sportscars and zipping through forest roads - calling for constantly changing speeds and direction), but I do have to admit - bigger wheels allow for larger brakes and that is definitely a positive when high performance tuning.
I just replaced my factory wheels and tires (20x8.5 w/ 245/40R20 Potenza's) on my electric car with Enkei`s RPF1 18x8 and 235/50R18 Michelin Energy Saver's. My weight at each corner went from 65lbs to 43lbs. The resulting range improved by 30%-52% depending on my driving style at the time and oh... my acceleration is very noticeable.
Although this is more of a racing/sport thread here, the fact that I have seen a dramatic improvement in efficiency confirms to me that weight does matter.
That's super cool to hear as I am very interested in getting an electric car and did not know how putting aftermarket wheels would effect acceleration, gas mileage etc!
Most of it comes from that energy saver.
my commuter car is 2100lbs and has 94hp. my stock wheel and tire combination was around 60lbs per, I reduced this 33lbs each by switching to a forged set and lighter tires. The improvement in efficiency is noticeable as is the handling, and this is just a basic commuter car I drive like an old man.
As a car guy but mainly a cyclist(the sporty overly serious type) i can really relate to that. Although i never heard somone say that unsprung mass is 15times worse than unsprung weight, many say that its at least a few multiple times. The rotational mass matters in my case more since the ratio between rider weight and power to the wheel weight is quite diffrent to cars. Many state that saving 300g on your wheels is like saving 600-900g on your frame. I can agree with twice the factor, but not more than that.
For example: My old training wheelset weighs 2,1kg. My newer one 1,9kg. Apart from sightly higher stiffness, everything stays the same. But acceleration and tracking feels so much better. I could easily get some 1,2kg wheelsets that would make an even bigger diffrence.
Unsprung mass is a bit more difficult. I changed from a very heavy 1,1kg front tire to a lighter 850g one. Fork stays the same. The suspension reacted noticeably better to smaller bumps and vibration, but bigger hits were just as uncomfortable. But im talking about very minor diffrences. You would have to have 500gish tires to really feel the unsprung mass get less. Sure, your suspension is working more, but is actually less active. In my eyes is the whole brabble about unsprung mass only for the ones that need to shave split seconds
The benefits of lower unsprung weight is more noticeable on roads that are not as smooth. Less unsprung weight is easier for the dampers to accurately control. This translates to the tires making or maintaining better traction with the road surface. Lighter wheel/tire packages also have better gyroscopic properties (motorcyclist know this all to well) making it easier to transition steering angles.
Unpopular opinion: just informing myself to see if it'll impact my mpgs positively
Something to consider in rotational mass is tire weight, something ppl don’t necessarily think about. A similar tire while 2lbs lighter will make more difference than saving 2lbs on a wheel due to the weight being further from the center
Someone who knows what they are talking about! Weight matters more the further it is from center.
I can feel the improvement switching from 23lb OE Toyo A40 eco tires vs the 19.2lbs Pirelli P Zero AS Plus UHP on my Mazda3 HB AWD (BP). The polar rotation being furthest from the hub is a huge benefit to acceleration, handling, steering, and braking. Bumps are not as harsh and it's way more comfortable.
@@lil2.74 Polar rotation is extremely important since it's furthest from the hub. You can get lightweight forged wheels, but you won't get it's fully benefit if you're using heavy tires.
@DroneStrike1776 Ya thats exactly what I said, weight matters more the further away from center. The furtherest from center would be the tire. Thats why I run a 255/50r20 Continental Extreme Contact DWS 06 plus on my F150, 30 inch overall diameter is the shortest I am willing to go, that is the lightest 30 inch diameter tire I have found at 30lbs. It also has a very high speed rating and gets very good traction in various conditions. And it survived rugged mountain roads during deer season, not one puncture.
Sry didn't hear what you're talking about because of this spectacular NSX. Daaamn boi...
I just recently found out that wheel weight is very important a month or two ago upgraded my wheels from 18 X 7 and 1/2 to 18 x 8 and that half an inch sure did a lot of weight my car now takes longer to to accelerate and my fuel economy has went down if I had known then what I know now I would have just stayed at the regular with
Don ellis damn bro i jus did the same thing 😭
I had a 98 Jetta that I put 17” tsw imolas on in place of the factory wheels. The handling felt better but it felt slower and took away about 7-8 mpg. Not sure what the weight difference was between the two but it must have been a bit to rob that many mpgs. I loved the look and kept them on for years, to me the look was more important than performance because it wasn’t a fast car anyway.
I feel like the drift community has both types of people
Yes
haha for sure!!
I have a G37 IPL and when I got new tires that were 2 pounds lighter than before the first thing I noticed was how much lighter the steering got, so I can only imagine how much of a difference lighter wheels will make. They are 27 up front and 28 in the rear. Hopefully there will be some good black Friday sales this year......
Went from 14in steel wheels with 195 all seasons, to 15in Enkei RPF01s with 205s and there was a noticeable difference in acceleration, braking and turn in.
There was about an 11lb difference between the two setups.
I used to have an SRT-4 and the difference between the stock wheels and the set of forged wheels I had for it WAS TREMENDOUS. They were 7 lbs lighter a piece than the stock wheels and that car was a handful with them lol.
I ordered some wheels for my car that are 8 pounds lighter per wheel and this is the type of comment I wanted to see lol. I hope I have similar results as you.
@@BunnyBUNGALO it’s crazy how much of a difference it makes lol. It doesn’t sound like much but you definitely notice the difference in a front wheel drive car lol.
I just ordered a set of forged magnesium monoblock wheels for my 370Z from Litespeed Racing in LA. They're going to shave about 10 lbs off of the weight of the Rays forged aluminum wheels that are on the car. I also just got a set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires that are several pounds lighter than the Bridgestone Potenza tires that were the OEM fitment from Nissan. The combination should improve the suspension dynamics noticeably when it's installed in about 2 months, after the wheels get built.
In about 6 months to a year I'm going to need a brake job and I'm going to replace the Akebono steel one-piece rotors with a set of Akebono 2-piece rotors with aluminum hats. These should take off another 10 lbs on the front corners and 5 lbs on the rears. Ultimately, I'm looking at shaving about 23 lbs off of the front corners and about 18 lbs from the rears, as compared to the stock OEM fitment for my car which is a 2019 Nissan 370Z 6MT with the sport pkg.
Great video guys, well done
@Faggot Rotten I do, it's in the latest tire test video
It's not only wheel weight. But the tire+wheel weight. I had 17x8 PF01 + 235/40R17 Ziis weight 43lb each corner, vs factory 17x7 and 205/45R17 potenza S04 weight 37lbs. Factory set up is noticeably lighter, engine have less load, rev up faster. Although I like the wide wheel look and ultimate lateral grip of my 17x8 set up, car feels faster with 17x7s. But I only had 160hp. If you have 500hp, I doubt you can feel the difference as much.
The other main thing when trying to get a fast car is areodynamics. Some people with those fast cars use weight reduction to get from 10 sec car to a 9 sec car with weight redux. Thats huge thats like adding 100 to 200hp to them.
I went from 30lb wheel/tires to 35lb ones on a 2200lb 1991 Toyota AE92 and it was dramatically different. Acceleration was way slower and I started getting 24mpg down from 30mpg. Really surprised me. Granted the car only has around 100hp but the heavier setup really ruined the fun and zippy feel of the car around town and in the forest roads.
Getting rid of heavy runflat tyres was the best thing I ever did.
scanspeak00 , How Much Did They Weigh ?
The thing is, the better driver your are and the more cars you start to drive, the more and more you feel the small changes in a car.
I got a 2018 ram sport a few months ago. It came with the R/T style 22x9 wrapped in Fortera 285 45R22. They weigh in at 90 lbs each. I'd love to shave off some poundage. But there are so few options for a sport touring type concave style of wheel for a dodge ram. It's been lowered 3/5 so the big offroad wheels with a -50 offset are out of the question. LOL!
I saw a study somewhere that showed dyno charts indicating that lighter wheels actually caused the car to "gain" horsepower.
edit: Thanks everyone, I know that wheels don't give you hp. That's why I put quotes around gain lol
Trevor M I think it's more of a demonstration of how HP is lost trying to spin heavier tires. So really the overall HP doesn't change it's the fact you have more usable HP
Would be interesting to see the dyno results of a heavier vs lighter wheel with the same tire size/brand on both sets of wheels
Coz the lighter the wheel the eazier it is the spin
Not technically a gain in horsepower you're just getting rid of some limiting factors of drivetrain loss. Same thing would happen if you got lighter drivetrain parts, and it's part of the reason of why supercars and hypercars are so fast and expensive. They spend more money manufacturing stronger and lighter pieces to reduce limiting factors.
Its something to consider when choosing mods: adding power (increase air/fuel/spark at engine/exhaust, enhancing speed) or subtracting power restriction (decrease sprung weight, drivetrain weight, and/or wheel weight, enhancing speed as well as all other actions of the car)
I changed wheels on my Golf R and saved 10 lbs a wheel (but the larger tires weighs more). I felt a difference!
ColdPetRat2.99 it doesn’t, I just meant the bigger tires weigh more than the smaller tires.
Enkei states on their website that for each pound of unsprung weight saved its equivalent to 20 pounds of vehicle weight saved. There’s probably a limit to this but I’m guessing Enkei has done the research/testing. I just installed some 18x8 Advan Racing RS2’s on my 2013 Audi S4. I weighed the RS2’s without tyres and the stock wheels without tyres (same size 18x8) and they were 8.1kg and 12.7kg respectively. That’s 4.6kg per wheel or ~55% saved per wheel. I haven’t taken them for a decent drive yet because I just installed them today but even just driving home the car felt a tiny bit more responsive to throttle inputs. It could be all placebo but it felt good and they look way better than stock so I’m happy.
Enkei has done their commercial job, if there was a result of testing which they say, we should have seen this "scientific" results in this vid.
OEM: 225/60R18 @7" => 245/45R20 @8.5" that was a lighter wheel despite the size increase. It's not an exact 1:1 comparison because of different tire brand, size, width, etc. but the biggest thing I noticed was when the car was coasting on the highway (rolling w/o throttle), once up to speed, it took longer for the heavier wheels to slow down, and the lighter ones slowed down notably faster.
0-60 and 60-0 was not notably different. Initial testing of 60-0 was actually worse, but that may have had something to do with alignment and setups (more camber = worse braking).
Cornering was also a big difference, but that had more to do with the width of tire than weight.
Yeah man any time you start obviously stancing your car or giving it wider tires and filling that wheel well you are gonna experiencing some changes when driving the car day to day. It is the price you pay man!
I noticed my car's absorbers worked a lot better when I changed to lightweight rims.
On top of that I used to run 25mm spacers with stock rims and unsurprisingly it caused the wheels to lock up a lot due to how heavily it is, so much so the car had a bit of negative camber.
Needless to say my abs no longer kicks in as often, with these new rims the car steers a lot faster, goes and stops quicker, the car bounces back to original height a lot quicker. Additional benefits include, better gas mileage, cool looking car.
I think i shaved at least 8 pounds of weight off each wheel.
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I WILL USE MY STEEL WHEELS FOR NOW. THEN IN THE FUTURE UPGRADE TO AN ALLOY WHEEL. GREAT VIDEO AND EDUCATION. THANKS FOR SHARING. I LEARNED SO MUCH.
Well like my truck you can drop about 7-10lbs wheel/tire with proper after market, and math for rotational mass for it works out to about 2.4to1 for every lb removed or equivalent non rot mass savings of 60-100lbs.
My rims are 25lbs per and I would like to go to 18lbs per not only for performance but because I don't like lugging fat ass rims around. I will be using my factory rims for winter tires and my new rims for summers. 6 to 7 pounds per wheel is pretty huge in the end that's a decent bit of weight.
Edit: Apparently almost all the GTI stock rims are heavy.
I run my car without oil and coolant to get the maximum poasiboe weight reduction
What in the world 😂😂
Dont forget to run with only 1/8 of gas tank
😭😭😭😭
"possible"
Thank you! Most stock rims are cast rims and weigh in at 30 - 35lb. Going with a Rohana is 25lb. Thats 40lbs off rotational mass of the vehicle transmission fly wheel, and other related components. I wish you would of talked about that difference in the example? 35lb rims to a 25 lb. Correct to say it would add in speed take off and reduce engine/trans energy . That is pretty huge per wheel factor. I called FITMENT and talked to one of your guys about going with a 20 Rohana, and a 245 40 20 instead of a 245 35 20, to have more side wall for better driving and avoiding pot hole damage. It only adds a 1lb extra in tire weight, adds more revolutions in the tire revolution per mile, but saves 10 lbs per wheel= 40lbs total off the start...wouldn't that work just the same as going with a 245 35 20 and a heavy 20 inch rim? And wouldn't it be better to just stick with a lighter 19 inch rim, and 245 40 19 saving in rotation mass? Thank you!!
Great points we can certainly have videos that go more in depth for you guys curious about more information! As always you can shoot us an email at wheels@fitmentindustries.com and we can help you with your fitment!
I=cMRR. I- the energy required to change the angular momentum of a rotating object, is equal to it's Mass, multiplied by it's Radius from the center if rotation Squared, multiplied by a constant that's determined by the shape of the object.
In other words, diameter affects the amount of energy to accelerate and decelerate the wheel as well as mass. Since the general shape of the wheel/tire combination will not change much, the constant won't change. However radius and mass can be changed to some extent... Lighter weight wheels/tires that are of a diameter closer to the brake caliper will require less energy to accelerate and decelerate.
So... those big, heavy wheels suck if you want to go fast or be efficient.
Look at big rig tractor trailers.... They run alloy wheels because it saves fuel over millions of miles accelerating & decelerating that huge mass every time it moves. They don't just do it to look nice, it saves $$$ long term.
My daily is a painfully stock (so far) 03 Corolla. The stock 15 inch steel wheels are 20ish pounds each. Found a set of 15 inch Prius alloys that weigh around 14 pounds each. Removed the tires from the steel wheels and mounted them on the alloys, so only weight change was the wheels. Around ~6 pounds per wheel, 24ish pounds total reduction.
There is a noticeable difference in ride comfort, braking, steering and acceleration, as well as a SMALL up tick in fuel economy. Obviously not a performance application or car, but the difference surprised me as my only goal was replacing the steel wheels for aesthetic reasons lol.
For the ~$150 spent on the wheels, lugnuts and switching tires over, it was absolutely worth it for my purposes. I imagine for a purpose built car, fine adjustments with smaller amounts of weight could be beneficial, but at such a cost that it may be not worth it.
I have oem style 44 Bmw alu wheels on my e46 coupe with 225/45 r17 tires.The mass of that wheel with tire is 21.1 kg.When I put winter tires (steel wheel/205/55 r16 mass is 17.1 kg)So....on that winter setup car is much easier to drive....better brakeing,better acceleration,better fuel economy.Only in corners is little bad for precision(winter tires are not good for sporty driving).So.....If you reduce rotacional mass.....you will be more happy with your car.
Dropped 10 pounds per corner on my G42 M240i xDrive and it's very noticeable in a good way.
Yes, wheel weight matters. It might shave .004 seconds off your 1/4 mile. Sometimes, that matters. But in the aspect of normal driving and just having fun, no, it doesn't help you in anyway. In fact having heavier wheels can be beneficial too.
Absolutely, I have always been a firm believer in heavier wheels holding beneficial factors!
Big one people don't realize, as you said. The furthest from the hub to greater the effect. What's furthers from the hub, the tire.
Do tires vary in weight? Hell yes.
You can shave 2-4lbs from the most crucial area of rotating mass.
Bingo!
Tyres are also different weight. If you are looking the lightest options. Remember to weight tyres also. Some wheel might get you save a 1lbs, but then are tyres that can do the same. It's the overall weight. No just 1 of 2.
Good point!
Oh.. 1 inch more to width is usually double the weight than 1 inch to outside diameter. That means 9.5x18 might be heavyer than 8.5x19.
I think you missed a HUGE ASPECT when talking of wheel weights! Most of us buy it due to the "Quality" of the wheel.
Yes the weight reduction is an added bonus but most people who drive track, drag/drift prefer forged wheels cuz they are more durable than cast wheels. "Mainstream" cast wheels "snap" and cause more catastrophic damages than forged wheels.
yeah when talking about forged vs cast, its going to be a big difference and it comes down to what you want to do with your car
tires should go hand in hand with wheel weight do to side wall stiffness some cars suck with certain tires that are suppose to be amazing
Very important went from stock wheels which were aluminum to a heavier aftermarket wheel car changed completely on how it drove
insane!
Go for smaller overall tire diameter - saves a lot on moment of inertia.
Nick Amarit and better MPG
loud Ring well, less moment of inertia generally equates better accel, better braking, and better MPG. Indirectly, it could also equate to longer lasting suspension.
you wont necessarily get better mpg, if you fitted a 15" wheel over a 13" to keep the same rolling radius the 15" tyre will have a shorter side wall, shorter side wall = less tyre deflection= lower rolling resistance.
krusher74 example 205-50-15 has the same size sidewall as 205-50-17 don't they?
yes but there not the same size, the 17 is bigger. for them to be equivalent radius the 17 would be a 205-40-17
Please do more "practical" videos like this over the normal show focussed stuff. I like both, but the functional topics are more useful.
Thank for the input!
my oem wheels had 25kg per wheel and my aftermarket one are 13.5kg per wheel :D i think it did a difference
I bought new wheels and tires on my car😎. Tires were garbage on OEM wheels, I bought Continental DWS06 Tires, daily driver G35 coupe. great Summer rain winter combo. Sitting on Rohana RC10's.
This thing sounds sexy.. 👀 Have you uploaded your ride to our gallery?
Great Video. gotta add with rotating mass, its way more noticeable effect with lower power vehicles, especially motorbikes and ebikes.
Can you guys please make a video on which air bag suspension systems are the best
I Don't Exist no cuz you don't exist
Samuel Santana lol
I thought they already did a video like that .
We certainly can!
I second this
There‘s a lad who did some tests with standard alloys vs OZ ultraleggera and he shaved 0.3 seconds off of a 3rd gear pull from 30-70mph. This is a very big difference; especially considering he did that with a fiat 124. check him out.
Nice rims but 0.3 tenths of a second?, at what costs?. For normal traffic I would advise to bring al that money to Abarth, much more efficient..
On i30N the difference between stock and performance wheels of same size is 10-12 lb per wheel. I didn't weight the wheels, but even they say that wheels on project c version o.z. wheels are 22 kg(48.4 lb) lighter in total and the difference between last few pounds is doubled in price
Rotational mass is EXTREMELY important. Rotational mass translates to rotational and gyroscopic inertia, my mortal enemies.
Wheel weight would matter for both racers and eco junkies. I'd imagine a great long term fuel cost saving with lighter wheels. Those eco boxes also have tyres that aren't as wide which would reduce friction of the tyre against the road. At the expense of traction ofc
My stock wheels 30 lbs without the tires. I’m looking at wheels that’s are close to 17 pounds. I’m guessing that’s going to make a pretty big difference cutting the weight almost in half.
Car and driver tested 19" rims (54lbs w/;tires) vs 18" rims (51lbs w/ tires), and noted no difference in acceleration.
Yeah me too, I have 19inch w/T 52lbs
OEM 18inch w/T 49lbs the only thing I felt was cornering tight made a difference, wider tires is my go to 😎
To be fair, 3 lbs is not much of a difference. Some drivers stand to lose (or gain) FAR more rotational weight.
Had heavy af stock wheels, changed to lightweight forged wheels. No difference whatsoever, not even a measurable difference in acceleration 🙈 Might have been better in corners, but I didn't really notice any positive effect at all from them. Installed a lightweight flywheel on another car however, that made a huge difference
Thinking about switching from 17"x7" 31 pound wheels to some 18x8 18 pound wheels. Car weighs 3.5 tons and does 272 horses.
You notice it when your car has a 800cc engine. xD
😂😂
I have these nice 18" 5 spoke polished centerline wheels from early 2000s. "Monsoon storm". Used to be on my first car a 96 z24 those things are LIGHT af. Like 16lbs each. I wish like hell theyd fit my 18 WRX I'd powdercoat them and slap em on 😅😅 You could totally tell with those things vs the stock 16s. That cavvy was a fun car. Hate fwd but was a great first car in many levels
Review on lighter wheels on bmw 318i e90
- Went from 16inch stock wheels to 18inch lightweight
- Went from runflat winter tires too summer tires
- Saved 4.9kg per wheel total
My theory is thar on less strong and faster cars you will notice the difference easier. When my friend (80kh) enters the car, I immediately feel a difference. It feels like the car is less responsive and worse in Acceleration.
Swapping to lightweight rims gave me the opposite feeling. As of I removed myself from the car. The whole daily driving becomes a lot more fun. A lot more responsive to the pedal. You clearly feel the engine has to work less for the same result. It slightly accelerates faster. But I think its mainly the feeling of more torque and responsiveness that gives that feeling. Bumps etc feel a lot smoother. Drives like a boat now. In terms of handling it was already good, and I think the handling just got better mainly because I got new tires on it.
Lightest tires I found were turanza t005 8.7kg
Rims are allegerrita hlt 18inch: 8.4kg.
If you can afford the swap go for it. Makes the daily drive a lot more fun. I would say you need minimun 3-5kg savings to feel the difference. And I assume you feel the difference on less powerfull engines faster.
Goodluck
I swapped to f30 five bar rims on my e90 328
It was mild better driving I swapped to a lighter tire which also added into the equation, but every time I drive my moms 328
Forget it!!! It’s just not as fun
I just put some new wheels on my WRX. They’re about 5 lbs lighter each. I noticed the car is a little more responsive. Would I do it again? Yes, the Motegi wheels I bought are only about $700 for the set and I don’t care about blingy bling or hella flush.
@Fitment Industries if you guys haven’t done a video about the effects of wider wheels and aggressive offsets (tramlining and turning circle) please do!
there actually is a dyno proven ratio between shaving off static weight vs rotational mass and the ratio happened to be 1:8.4.
It's obviously only important depending on what you drive and how you use it. If you're in a high performance family sedan where at least two to three people are in it 99% of the time adding 100+ pounds each, doesn't matter at all what your wheel weight is. Most carry at least one other body in their "performance" car when trying to show what it can do, and that's already defeating the purpose of the car. Real world people. Real world.
For sure! it's all about what you are doing to your car
I had very light 15's and they spin WAY better then any wheels same size
the unsprung writeups i have seen are referring to rotational mass. i think it is the cute way of saying the things that spin and in that sense the reduction of rotational mass is greater then the static mass.
Rotational mass is key. Great to save weight with wheels, but look at the tires first. These factors seem to make a bigger difference with an AWD car. We've dyno'd lightweight Baer rotors, along with light wheels/tires in the Evolution community and saw consistent gains. On my own Evo IX, we dropped close to 35lbs of rotational mass. It's a difference you can feel. Not necessarily as speed, rather as a more nimble, more tossablle machine.
I would like to know more about the "fancy" stuff of the ratio of spring wieght
Do spacers/adapters affect the bore weight as mentioned in the video? Alex mentions forged because it lessens the weight at the wheels center, which is more important, so would adapters be adding weight to this area?
Spacer / adapters only really effect the amount of stress that is put on the bearings which can be avoided by properly fastening your lug nuts!
Thanks for the reply! So I shouldn’t have to worry to much about the weight of the adapter? I am getting konig rennforms 18x8 5x114.3 for my brz because they are lightweight and they look really nice. Also very affordable for such a lightweight 18 diameter wheel.
Went from
32lbs 18x10.5 235/40
to
17lbs 17x9 205/40
in the rear for drifting. I know it helped me spin the wheels easier, but by how much?
Light rims and tyres.... smaller rotational mass = better fuel consumption
I imagine the strain heavier wheels can put on the drivetrain. The last think I want to have to worry about is snapping an axle.
Was that the mayor of hinchtown at 3:50? They have light wheels almost hit myself in the face with one expecting there to be some weight behind it...
A major determinant of performance is unsprung weight to sprung weight ratio. If you have super lightweight car and horrifically heavy sprung mass, getting anywhere near decent handling with passive suspension is completely impossible.
For an extreme example, big foots have crazy heavy wheels on relatively lightweight tube frame chassis. They struggle to keep the car under control with crazy suspension setups.
A practical example is a semi truck. The unsprung mass weighs even more than the chassis.
for sure! thanks for the input!
Did you test accelerating or maintaining speed going uphill or frequent stop and go?
What brands would you recommend as far as lightweight performance wheels? And actually make 20 inch wheels
Just put cast wheels on my 97 Sunfire Coupe. Boy are they potentially too heavy for the car. It's tough to get going and tough to slow down and handles like poop. Looks badass tho
I'm taking my wheel weights off. Too much unsprung weight. Jk....
😂😂👀
You didn’t mention gas mileage. So if I have the exact same car that gets 30 miles to the gallon with stock tires and rims, and I do a long drive (the whole tank,) through a few towns with signal lights, will it make any appreciable difference if my wheel weight is reduced by a few pounds?
Some people like to use stock size wheels with relatively thick sidewall instead of upsized wheels with thinner side walls because rubber is lighter than metal. (Given you do the correct aspect ratios and the whole wheel/tire diameter stays the same and disregard the thicker side wall flex during hard cornering for now)
Is rubber that much lighter than, say, forged metal??
I work at a luxury car dealership and change tires rather often, some times I pick up a wheel by itself and surprise myself how light the wheel is, but it feels much heavier with the tires on, so it got me thinking.
Yeah I agree these newer wheels that companies are making now a days can be surprisingly light, 🧐
I like the points this video makes without getting too technical. Rotational mass or rather rotational inertia is important but at the point that most cars have more than enough torque to spin up four rims a majority of power goes to moving the mass of vehicle itself. On the unsprung weight argument i would agree that it will only be noticeable on a track as lower unsprung mass allows the suspension system to reacted faster to changes in the road surface and regain/retain traction especially at high speeds. A video on car suspension would be cool, especially focusing on the correct ways to lower your car as stock geometry cannot simply just paired with shorter springs or coilovers without sacrifice.
Grassroots managed to knock off .29 sec 0-60 from 12lbs each corner. That's with a Miata NA 115hp and pathetic torque. I'm sure lighter cars with around 200hp/tq will hugely benefit from losing 12lbs, not just on the track. There's a video of an Fiat 124 with 16lbs OZ wheels vs stock 22lbs and he achieved over .30 sec better acceleration from 30-75 pulls in 3rd gear. Over three tenths is a lot when you consider that each run only takes 7 seconds. So it's not just on the track, it's road handling manners, steering, braking, potholes, and comfort you get from reducing unsprung weight. The only way you won't feel any benefit if your car makes a ton of power and is already heavy like an M3/4 or Mustang GT etc., unless you're driving a 5th gen Camaro SS with wheels weighing similar to the moon.
I saved 17 pounds per wheel by changing my 17X8 in. cast aluminum wheels and 235/55x17 tires to 16x7 in (stock size) 16.28 lb "flow forged" alloy Konigs w/225/60 -16 Goodyears. Difference of night and day with the same overall diameter. Better acceleration, better gas mileage, better cornering and braking. VERY "noticeable." difference.
All other things being equal, Bigger wheels=heavier wheels + bigger & heavier tires= Higher rotational mass = s-l-o-w-e-r.
Here's the formula: BW=Hw+B&Ht = HRM = VS
(I don't work for Konig) I don't race or drift, these are on my daily driver, and I do sometimes drive hard and fast. Fitment Ind. is where I buy my wheels, but they are very hard to do business with, especially on the phone. They have great prices and a broad selection - as does CarID - excellent place to do business - great on the phone, excellent, personable, professional, helpful staff. But a little more $ than Fitment Ind. Tire rack is ok, but narrower selection and much higher prices.
Sorry for the delay on the phone there is only really a handful of people that handle all those calls, But glad to hear you enjoy our products. We would love to see you ride in our gallery sometime! bit.ly/2AG1bx1
I'd like to see some quantification to balance the abundance of qualified comments here. Differences in lateral grip, acceleration, braking, lap times, slalom speed, smoothness, durability...
I got 50 ish lbs steel wheels, i think if i where to get some light weight monoblock forged wheels id feel like i have a brand new car
I always think about how wonderful would be to have 1 pound wheels!