I am sure this question has been asked a few million times but I will do it again anyhow.
I am currently building a FC purely devoted to the track.
The wheels I have on my daily driver, also an FC are Volk GT-C's which are probably my favourite wheels on and FC. Seeming as I already have a set of GT-C's I was thinking of going something different for the race car.

Question is what is every bodies favourite wheels. keep in mind it is an FC and the sizes I am looking at are about 245 front and 275 rear possibly wider that is why I am doing my research.
They also need to be light (race car) and forged.
I would be most interested in uncommon wheels. Volks are good and all but I like being a little different

 

First you'll need to indicate how much wider your car is over stock.

Also what suspension setup you have.

If you want light, don't go multipiece. For those tire widths you don't need to go crazy. I'm assuming you're in the 350Z/240SX Fitment range. plenty of one piece light wheels out there.

Enkei RPF1 FTW......

Rishie

 

RPF1 for sure.
fno1rc are nice and cheap but NOT as light as you'd think.
if its gonna take a beating on the track maybe look for used JDM wheels, like older enkeis and some other forged wheels.
if you dont need super light you can get MBmotoring wheels for damn cheap in FCwidebody friendly offsets, theyre all over zilvia.net and other 240sx forums and maybe even discounttiredirect?

like Rishie said, ya really gotta figure how wide your car will be and how wide a tire you can afford... wider = big money ... ouch.

 

I am looking at going 25mm wider at the front and 30mm Rear. Looking to get around 10" of rubber up front and 11" up the back. This should be easily achievable shouldn’t it?

I will try not to sound arrogant here, but the money is not a huge concern to me.
That said I am not keen on going over $3000. I haven't really decided on suspension setup other than I will probably get custom spring rate coil overs (probably silk road).

I am relatively new to tracking cars, though I have been racing my bikes for a few years. I decided to get into it now that I have a little more money to play with. But I am the first to admit I have no clue on setting up a car other than the obvious.

 

OK so here we go.

imho a FC with stock fenders can only fit a 8" wide wheel up front with a GRIP setup. That being said, you want 2" wider up front = 50mm wider up front.

In rear of FC with GRIP Setup i think 9.5" is max on stock fender. Therefore you want to be 1.5" wider in rear = 37mm.

So now i ask you:

What tire sizes are you trying to run which require this wide of a wheel?

Remember that going widebody and changing the offset of your wheels will hurt your wheel bearings and affect your overall spring rates. Make sure you equalize everything using some physics.

Please make sure you balance your power output with your tire widths because too much friction will slow your car down. Determine how many turns, how long the tracks are that you'll be running on etc.... to squeeze all the speed out of the car you can.

Lastly, what suspension are you planning to run on?

Rishie

 

Panasports FTW


-Ted

 

yeah panasport modulars in 16" FTMFW!!!!!!!!

really, a 255 front and 275 rear setup is plenty for a lightened FC on track, with some 9.5" up front and 10.5" out back on a 20mm front / 30mm rear widebody, thats a great setup, wheels are easy to find in those sizes, 17" sized tires are plentiful, not way too expensive (18" = ouch!) and there is a good variety of tires to choose from.

 

CCW Classics in 16"

They can make you a custom wheel in pretty much any offset/width.

 

This may be the inner ricer in me talking but am I the only one who finds the Panasports a little to old school? Don’t get me wrong if I had a mini cooper I would definitely rock them.

I have always been a fan of the 5 spoke design myself

 

Panasport G7 C5C remind me of the RAYS wheels on the 787B:





Also, I have Panasport G7 C5C2's which are also modular 3 piece wheels. Mine are 18x10.5 +0. Here is a pic compared to 18x10.5 +15 TE37.

 

yeah panasports are a little oldschool but I dont think anyone would badmouth them if they were 10" wide and completely siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick! (like those above or the 16x10/11 or was it 12 oldschool "kidney bean spoke" modulars on the tripoint racing widebody FC)

 

X2, my 17's came today but no one was home to sign for them.... Gotta wait until tomorrow I guess...

 

Go with 17's... stay away from 16's ... there are no tires for that size rim

 

True for DOT tires, but for real race tires there's lots of 16" sizes out there for GT2 and GT1 class racing.

If it's truly a track car, then speed is the ultimate goal, so style really shouldn't be a deciding factor, get the lightest, strongest, best fitting wheels you can afford and if they look decent then it's a bonus.

 

My friend runs in GT up in Canada. We tried to get him to go 17s. But you can get Speed GT and GT2 take-offs in like 265/40/18 for basically free. Of course every team runs slightly different, but nowadays, honestly, 18s is the way to go. Just radius the fiberglass fenders to accept the larger OD of the wheels/tires if need be once you slam the car down to the mandatory 3" minimum clearance.

 

Cheap/free tires are excellent, but to get the car back down to the proper ride height from being raised on the taller tires you'll probably end up with suspension geometry changes that are less than desirable, and the larger wheel openings will increase aero drag, the larger wheels and tires will sap more power, and they'll raise the gearing. All of this would contribute to making the car slower. Also, 18" wheels aren't cheap, so that's another hit against that idea, and if the sources of nearly free tires dries up then those tires will be more expensive to buy. Remember, it's a system, and when you change one thing you affect many others. Not that it's not a good idea, with noble intentions, it just breaks down under closer scruitiny.

You can probably get 16" take-off's from some GT1/2 racers for a good price too.

Hoosier's now making a 275/35/15 R6 that'd make a nice widebody FC tire. No stagger though, as there's not really anything in between that and the 225/45/15 that's close to the same diameter, and a 225/275 stagger probably isn't going to work too well, too much difference.

 

I can get 335/30/18 Hoosiers that have been used for 1 weekend as takeoffs for $70 each. They are nearly $400 new.

The guy I get them from (Bob Chick Used Race Tires) said that if I switched to a full slick (Dunlop/Goodyear etc)..... that he has a ton of them. DOT tires like the Hoosiers aren't run as commonly as full slicks or at least he doesn't end up with as many of them.

If you can't afford tires.... then you probably shouldn't be racing.