LIGHT WHEELS?

[Tony Conti]

Currently I have the wheel and tire setup I've always wanted, but they are very heavy. In Fact, they are heavier than the OEM wheels. I want to take my mustang to the track so I really want to have a good and very light set of wheels that look good. Any suggestions? This is my current setup.

 

[stkjock]

drag or HDPE?

budget?

 

[Tony Conti]

Budget is no more than $1000 for just the wheels, I don't know how realistic that is though. Also not a drag setup.

 

[Norm Peterson]

So I'm guessing that means introductory road course driving - either HPDE (with national organizations such as Hooked On Driving, or local/regional outfits like AutoInterests in your neck of the woods), or SCCA's Track Night in America.

Starting out, don't worry about wheel weight. Don't even think about it. It doesn't make as much difference in lap times as people might like to think, and HPDE/TNiA laps aren't being timed anyway (if you choose to time your own laps, you're looking for progress - lap times dropping no matter what they were on your first day - rather than absolute numbers).

After you have some seat time would be the earliest time to start looking at wheels. You'll have a better idea what you might want, and more understanding (especially where wheel width and tire sizing are concerned . . . and a better idea about how they're related to each other).

If it matters, I started out on 2008-ish GT500 wheels, which are fairly heavy, and not all the wide either. They were not a hindrance whatsoever as far as progressing up out of instructed or lead-follow novice run groups was concerned.


Norm

 

[Tony Conti]

I'm looking for light wheels to pair to a carbon fiber driveshaft and lightweight flywheel. I want to reduce the weight of the rotational mass as much as possible.

 

[RavenGT]

Apex wheels. Closer to $2k though.

https://www.apexraceparts.com/

 

[Tony Conti]

Apex wheels. Closer to $2k though.

https://www.apexraceparts.com/

Wow I wish I hadn't seen that because I think those are the winners.... shit

 

[Tony Conti]

$2600 on wheels... man am I going to kick myself in the ass for this one.

 

[Tony Conti]

Before I do that, does anyone know of a cheaper option? Or is the goal I am trying to achieve just expensive?

 

[tjm73]

Crazy as it sounds. Go to Tire Rack and use the wheel tool. You can select a bunch of things an weight is one of them. You may find something you like that is lightweight. Expect to be in the 18" size.

 

[Flusher]

Before I do that, does anyone know of a cheaper option? Or is the goal I am trying to achieve just expensive?

I worked with a guy who made funny car bodies. That was about the time that carbon fiber injector hats were becoming the norm, circa 1995. There was a lot of experimentation with composite this, that, or another. At that time, removing one pound of weight cost $1000, only to add it back somewhere else that was hopefully more beneficial (the cars were already at the minimum class weight).

You have to decide if chasing thousandths of a second are worth it to you. Keep the law of diminishing returns in mind.

 

[Tony Conti]

I wasn't even born yet lol anyways, that is a good point you made. My main reasoning for this is that my back wheels with tires are over 50lbs each and then the stock driveshaft is I think 43lbs. So to accelerate I need to spin almost 200lbs. I think I might just be anal but I really want to lighten the car up as a whole.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I'm looking for light wheels to pair to a carbon fiber driveshaft and lightweight flywheel. I want to reduce the weight of the rotational mass as much as possible.

I know why you want to spend this money. All I'm saying is that you don't need to just yet for any sort of road course habit. Work on the driving skills part first.


A few years ago there was a Roush 427R running in the same run group with me. Most sessions - roughly 20 minutes each - I'd lap him. My car was as shown in my avatar pic, mild FRPP tune, just a little suspension work (bars, shocks/struts, rear LCAs, and GT500 wheels with 255/45-18 Goodyears. And I hadn't even been tracking very long.


Norm

 

[Tony Conti]

I see what your saying, right now I'm running a 275 40 r18 in the front and a 305 45 r18 in the rear. Do you think it would be better to use the stock wheels with good tires or use that setup?

 

[msvela448]

Enkei PF01... Pretty much was the gold standard for AutoX for quite a while... Very light (only 12.1 Lbs. Per wheel), decently strong, and not bad looking.

https://m.tirerack.com/wheels/Wheel...6!3!72322457293!!!g!79583395333!&gclsrc=aw.ds

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

[frank s]

I understand on a very basic level the desire to make every component of your car the optimum application. And the feeling that you get from knowing that's the case, whether or not it is important in real-world use of the vehicle. I bought the Borla SwitchFire exhaust crossover/x-pipe because it incorporated some thinking and physics that appealed to that orientation; not much measurable increase in performance, but a sweet knowledge that it was under the car and doing some useful work.

Seems to me you'll not be happy until you've approached the ideal wheel/tire combination for your use, which I think is entirely based on that satisfying sensation of having got it right. No amount of reason will change that, so go ahead and do your research and acquisition, and enjoy the part of it that makes you feel the way you want to feel. Maybe later on you will develop a genuine need to make changes in pursuit of higher performance, but at this point it's clearly a matter of feel rather than seconds per lap. Invest in that and happiness will follow.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I see what your saying, right now I'm running a 275 40 r18 in the front and a 305 45 r18 in the rear. Do you think it would be better to use the stock wheels with good tires or use that setup?

Either approach would get you started, but neither of those would be very close to optimum.

Once you get a little seat time, you'll probably discover that either the OE wheels are too narrow to support the tire size(s) appropriate to the weight of these cars, or that you've got way too much tire size stagger in your other setup.

Without knowing whose tires or what rim widths are in your current setup, the option to improve cornering behavior involving the least work and expense might be to drop the rear tire size down to something like 285/40-18 if that size exists in the same tire make & model as your front tires. 305/35-18 could be another option, though there's a reason you don't see more than 20 mm tire stagger in any of the current handling-oriented V8 ponycars (PP2 and GT350 Mustangs and the V8 1LE Camaros).

Best bang for the buck for road course wheels seems to be with the rotary forged wheels. Stronger and lighter than stock, significantly less expensive than fully forged wheels. Prices have gone up some since I bought a set of Forgestars though (Vorshlag is showing those at $2000/set as well, with a long lead time).


Norm

 

[JRFish]

I recently went with a set of Apex 19x11s with 305/30 NT01s. I will have to run spacers up front, and also have a set of FRPP hubs with 3" ARP studs to accommodate that. I haven't had a chance to get it all fitted up yet, but my logic on this set up was as follows.

I wanted to have a set of dedicated track day tires, and pull them when I go back to the street set up. And I also figured that tires were the most significant consumable expense on doing track weekends, and being able to rotate the square set up will help me prolong the tire life and spread that expense over multiple weekends.

I spent $3760 on the wheels + tires incl. tax. Summit got another $400 of my dollars for the hubs & lug nuts. Hope that info helps. Have fun whatever you do!

PS. Don't know how anxious you are, but APEX will sometimes set up group buys that allow you to save a couple Benjis. So look out for those.

 

[Racer47]

I see what your saying, right now I'm running a 275 40 r18 in the front and a 305 45 r18 in the rear. Do you think it would be better to use the stock wheels with good tires or use that setup?

I think you are making this too hard. You will not notice a few pounds of wheel weight. I ran 18x10s LMR SVE wheels for years and was very fast. You can get a good set of wheels from LMR for about $1000, 18x10, 19x10 or 19x11. Any of those 3 will work well. Figure out what level of tires you want and what size you need (width and dia) and buy wheels to match the tire size you want

Here's a set for $930. https://lmr.com/item/WK-355913DA/mustang-sve-r355-wheel-kit-grey-15-19

10" wides will work well with 295s. 11" wides can go up to 315s. The level of your tires will determine your ultimate lap times much more so than 3 lbs of wheel weight. I used to run 295/30R18s on 10" wheels, now running 315/30R18 on 11" fronts and 335/30R18 on 12" rears. The real questions are.....how fast do you want to go and how deep are your pockets???

 

[Tony Conti]

I understand on a very basic level the desire to make every component of your car the optimum application. And the feeling that you get from knowing that's the case, whether or not it is important in real-world use of the vehicle. I bought the Borla SwitchFire exhaust crossover/x-pipe because it incorporated some thinking and physics that appealed to that orientation; not much measurable increase in performance, but a sweet knowledge that it was under the car and doing some useful work.

Seems to me you'll not be happy until you've approached the ideal wheel/tire combination for your use, which I think is entirely based on that satisfying sensation of having got it right. No amount of reason will change that, so go ahead and do your research and acquisition, and enjoy the part of it that makes you feel the way you want to feel. Maybe later on you will develop a genuine need to make changes in pursuit of higher performance, but at this point it's clearly a matter of feel rather than seconds per lap. Invest in that and happiness will follow.

You are right Frank, I really like your statement! Been at work a lot and haven't really had rime to respond.

Either approach would get you started, but neither of those would be very close to optimum.

Once you get a little seat time, you'll probably discover that either the OE wheels are too narrow to support the tire size(s) appropriate to the weight of these cars, or that you've got way too much tire size stagger in your other setup.

Without knowing whose tires or what rim widths are in your current setup, the option to improve cornering behavior involving the least work and expense might be to drop the rear tire size down to something like 285/40-18 if that size exists in the same tire make & model as your front tires. 305/35-18 could be another option, though there's a reason you don't see more than 20 mm tire stagger in any of the current handling-oriented V8 ponycars (PP2 and GT350 Mustangs and the V8 1LE Camaros).

Best bang for the buck for road course wheels seems to be with the rotary forged wheels. Stronger and lighter than stock, significantly less expensive than fully forged wheels. Prices have gone up some since I bought a set of Forgestars though (Vorshlag is showing those at $2000/set as well, with a long lead time).


Norm

To the statement you made about the OE wheels, when I was messing around and getting a feel for the car it would slide all over which is why I went for a wide setup. I had brand new firestone firehawk indy500's and would spin through first (without dropping the clutch), halfway through second and some of third. I know the tire composition of has a lot to do with grip but I wanted a better looking wheel and I wanted to fill out the wheel wells. I feel like having 8.5" wide rear wheels is still too small with good tires for the weight and power of the car.