how bout 16 inch racing rims? - Honda Prelude Forum

cuseC08 · 03-10-2002, 01:39 PM

I want to get some light racing rims but i'm afraid if i get 17's it will still slow me down a little. What if i get some 16's that are about 9 lbs or so. stock are 19. how much will this take off the 1/4? how many car lengths will i gain if i go to a 16 inch 9 lb rims with stock tires?

jimrawr · 03-10-2002, 03:14 PM

your only dropping 40lbs... i dont think you will notice a diffrence

DYI01 · 03-10-2002, 03:18 PM

it will make difference, rotating mass is WAY DIFFERENT than just dead weight. Why do you think any serious racecars have light ass wheels

xtal · 03-10-2002, 03:20 PM

9lb 16's? I'm going to get Volks, and they're 12lb 16's. I don't know what affect they have on a drag strip, but there is a measureable difference on an autoX course. There's no drag strip within 800km of here, so I won't be doing times.. I think somone in sport compact car worked out losing 1lb off the wheel is roughly equal to 2lb unsprung. You will also gain benefits to braking as there's less inertia stored in the wheels, handling improvements, etc, which is what I'm really after.Everyone in the area I race with says tire upgrades 1st, which means wider wheels, which means new rims. As far as drag racing goes:

Based on a 7lb drop per wheel, that's 28lbs of wheel weight saved and that's about equal to 56lbs off the car. Based on the rule of thumb I've heard here that 100lbs == 0.1s. that'll get you around 0.06s. Or, not a whole hell of a lot

. Might get you from a 14.0 to a 13.9x .

I recommend checking out the following article on "low calorie donuts" for some background:

http://integra.vtec.net/wheels/lightwheels.html

A quick search also revealed:

http://www.cuoresportivo.org/press/a...9p010e01.shtml

I might be wrong on the effective 2x thing, but IIRC, there was a decent analysis in SCC a few months ago. Somone will undoubtedly correct me if I'm far off.

Steve