Ef-Dee

If there are any, which ones help with airflow the most?

JoeD

lol...i dont think anyone has ever tested this, or had that much time on their hands to test this.

there is gonna be no aerodynamic difference between different sets of wheels.

Ef-Dee

I'm guessing the stock rims would be the most aerodynamic since I guess they would've been tested in a wind tunnel??? I dunno hehe

Rx-7Addict

iTrader: (2)

Those really lame looking wheels that look like wheel covers.

The RB FD that raced on the salt flats had them. Other high speed record cars like this also had them.>

If you dont care about looks, go for it

black99

You mean Moon wheel covers?? Like used on salt flat cars?? Yeah they would probably be the cheapest lightest ways to make your wheels aerodynamic efficent..

maxcooper

Are you looking for brake cooling from air flow, or keeping the Cd of the car low? I think the priority of having light wheels is more important, and that should be a larger driver in choosing wheels for a street or track (not salt flats) car.

-Max

martini

that is very wrong.

JoeD

i would love to be proven wrong by some test data, not by opinion.

if there was a significant difference between the cd of different rims, you would see aerodynamicness right up threre with the claims of strength and light weight for advertisements by wheel manufacturers. i have not seen a single claim of "our wheels are very aerodynamic" by even the top wheel manufacturers in the world (Kinesis, Fikse, Forgeline, HRE, Volk, BBS, etc.)

but...i would love to be proven wrong by some actual data and numbers, not by opinion. also, whats your reasoning as to why i am wrong?? (my reasoning is the paragragh above).

RETed

Get wheel well covers like the rear of the SCOOT FD or old-school caddies...&nbsp Who cares what kinda rims you got underneath!




-Ted

Nathan Kwok

There is an aerodynamic difference (otherwise why would high speed cars cover the spokes? Same goes for racing bicycles.), but the designers design not for low c.d., but to channel air into the brakes and allow heat to radiator off of them. However I think most cars have the wheels designed with neither in mind, only style and ease of manufacturing.

94touring

Go with some really round wheels. Seriously though I can't imagine there being any kind of effect on a cars rims, bikes yes, but thats totaly different. Unless the rims have something that stick out into the path of wind resistance.

Node

iTrader: (1)

nice avatar

Ef-Dee

pictures please!!! I wanna see em!

Ef-Dee

The thought of aerodynamic rims came to mind when I saw this pic somewhere around the forums...

94touring

Thanks Node!! It took me for fricken ever to figure out how to get the program I downloaded to get it to work right. I wanted to put a ton of stuff in there, but it takes up too much space.

lane_change

iTrader: (20)

Arelli Assasins are really round and have only two spokes so less resistance. You should get some 22" Chrome ones, helps the top end out for Salt flat racing.
Now your cooking.

black99

This is more than likely correct, I think the rims being aero dynamic themselves doesn't matter as much on a FD as it would an open wheel car, such as many of the salt flat cars. It has already been said that once a vehicle is at speed that weight matters less and aerodynamic efficentcy matters more and more as the speed goes up. So if I were building a FD for top speed I wouldn't give a real **** about how much a wheel weighs, because that doesn't really apply more to your purpose, making the car more aerodynamic does. And I would do anything possible to make my car more aerodynamic and possibly help me. True with a lighter wheel you have less rotational mass making you accelerate faster, but they have like 3 or 4 miles to accelerate maybe more, so this doesn't apply people looking to break 200+mph.. Most of the people looking to break top speed records are looking for every 1/10th of a mph they can get. Again I don't think aerodynamic efficentcy of wheels applys really to street driven cars, but more to cars built to run over 200mph and break top speed records, etc.

RETed

Uh, is this some person's joke of trying to be an aerodynamic engineer?
The pic is WAY off in terms of wheel aero.&nbsp Due to brake ducts, there's a HUGE high pressure area inside the front wheel well.&nbsp If you've ever seen car in the rain, it's obvious where that the high pressure area exits out the front wheel well...



-Ted

NickSimcheck

Anybody that says the design of the wheel(s) doesn't affect aerodynamics he's an idiot hold something like a fan side ways in 50 mph winds and hold something of the same size and flat and try to tell me it doesn't have less drag? Any patterns in the wheel disturbs air flow. I myself wouldn't worry about it until you go above 170, brake cooling would mean a lot more then the drag caused by the wheels.

Just my 2
Nick.

Rx7 TwinTurbo

Joe-D you are wrong.Sorry to say this but there can be significant gains in rim aerodynamics.I don't know how to explain it but NICK makes the point I'm thinking of.I'll try to find a wheel that would be superior to the stock FD's.

JoeD

i think Ef-Dee's orignal question was regarding wheels made for the street, not wheels for cars that only run at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

BTW, when is Kinesis someing out their new K-58As?? (A for Aerodynamic)

JoeD

can someone please prove to me that there are differences in aerodynamics between wheels made by Kinesis, Fikse, HRE, CCW, Volk, BBS, and other street/race wheels??

Juan

iTrader: (28)

put some knock offs on your wheels. When your wheels are moving really fast, the knock offs act like propellers and make your car faster. Theyre stylish and are a great performance mod!

Ef-Dee

yeah, i meant rims for street use

martini

That picture is from the website www.autospeed.com. They are aftermarket rims, and it's an aftermarket wing.

The test was run to determine where the turbulance is, and direction of airflow, when the car is at speed..no other reason. The test was conducted by taping many many woll tufts to the body of the car (very similar to how Mazda did thier testing)

I wish I could link the article for you guys, but it's a subscription based site.