I have heard conflicting opinions on this. Will there be benefits in the 1/4 mile by using light weight wheels on the rear? I am about to purchase some 11.5 lb wheels but don't know if it's worth it to get all four or just two for the front.

I know the loss of weight alone will help if changing the rears, but is there the same gains as the drive wheels?

If anyone has actually switched out all four wheels and saw a drop in ET and a gain in trap speed I would love to hear about it.

Thanks.

 

I am using the millenia wheels for the rear with the lightest tires I could find, I think they are 185's. I didn't do a before and after but would be pretty easy because I change them every time I go to the track. I will try and remember to do it. From all I have read reducing unsprung weight is much more beneficial to reducing sprung weight by about 6-1.

I have reduced my N/A times from 15.1 at the start of the year to 14.6 now and I do attribute some of that to the weight of those rear wheels, I also pump them up to 65 psi.

 

Millenia wheels are the ones I am going to get. Can't beat 11.5 lbs, too bad they are only 6" wide. I am leaning twords just getting two for the drive wheels and go from there.

 

I bought 4 originally and planned on using them for drive wheels as well but the slicks wouldn't even begin to seal on them and they require at least a 7 in to work without massivine rounding of the edges anyway. There is only one tire I found that would work and if I remember it was the M&H 23x7.5x15. So I bought a couple of 7 in K1's and mounted my Nitto D/R's on the other two and am selling them separately now.

Make sure you get the right wheels too, I took my scales around and weighed them because there are about 3 different millenia wheels and the others are heavier. The 11.5 lb ones are 9 spoke.

 

Yes they are the 9 spoke 15" rims off a 95 millenia. I spoke to Nealoc187 about them to make sure they were the correct wheel.

What are you asking for the millenia wheels with the D/R's??

 

Sorry, they are gone, I managed a 13.9 with a 35 shot on them though. Not as good as the slicks but not bad as opposed to 15.1 with the same setup on street tires. Although I just nailed it off the line so no traction at all with the street tires.

 

wonder if these millenia wheels will clear the brakes on an 02... I'm shooting for 13.5's with weight reduction and smaller/lighter wheels this winter.

 

It's a tight fit on a 4th gen. Maybe a 1/2" clearance of the caliper from what I remember when I used Neal's a few months ago.

Jime-

What was an average 60' difference for you between the drag radials and slicks. I am going to run slicks on the millenia wheels next season and street tires for now. Here comes another 13 sec N/A 4th gen(fingers crossed)

 

well I have MAYBE an 1/8" clearance b/t the caliper and wheel on the 15x7 tsw revo. I wish it wasn't so heavy but it was the only wheel available at the time I knew would fit. Guess I can test fit someones saw blades too see if they fit and use those unless I can locate some millenia 9 spokes for cheap.

 

If you want to buy now, I am buying two from a guy who has four available.

 

interested how much?

 

Check your PM's

 

I think I pulled a 2.0 vs 1.8 with the slicks. I only did a couple of runs though didn't play with the pressure too much and was running around 20 psi.

One thing about D/R's though they are more consistent than slicks even though they don't have as much traction.

 

Done let me know

 

Does anyone know how well 19" lightweight rims compare with say 15-16" lightweight rims at the track?

 

You will be a little slower on the 19's b/c of rotational mass. It's not as big of a deal as most make it but there is some time factors associated with size and weight of wheels.

 

The 19s I'm getting are 15 pounds each. Any idea the difference it might make in my ¼ mile time compared with the stock 16s? It will be faster right?

 

Something that Dave B pointed out to me, and I found to be true is that larger diameter wheels seem to bog(g?) of the line easier. I noticed this last time I was at the track when I ran with my 17's. I have never had a problem with bogging before, but with my 17's I bogged 2 out of the 3 runs.
Wheel weight, in my case, is killing my times. My 17's are a 52lb wheel tire combo compared with a 38lb stock combo. When I go to the millenia wheels on the front I will be shaving off 40lbs of rotaional mass.
This won't be the best comparison, but Wednesday I will be running at Neals local track using his millenia wheels. Last week I ran at my local track with my 17's and could not do any better than a 14.9
Running at different tracks is not good to do comparison runs, but it will give me some idea of how much the 17's were hurting me.

I would still like to know if anybody has good data to back up 1/4 gains from using light weight non drive wheels.

 

Well when I had my 18" konig verdicts on my car, I was definitely slower in the ¼ mile. I put my 16s back on and my car was about .2-.3 tenths quicker consistently. The Verdicts with tires outweighed the stock wheels b about 5 pounds per wheel. The 19's I'm getting are 15 pounds per wheel so I'm thinking about 35-40 pounds with wheel and tire. I'm interested to see what I can pull assuming traction isn't too much of an issue. I will get 14.7 this winter NA....hopefully...

 

97 Maxima Se Stock 16 inch rims

Im the worst when it comes to all this. But I feel my maxima needs every advantage. Right now I still have the stocks on it. I weighed them at 40 lbs. wheel and tire combo.

I have been looking for rims for 2 weeks and Im ordering SSR Competitions this friday in 16 x 7.5 at 12.8 lbs. per rim. This will make my tire and rim combo 32.8 pounds per wheel.

Well, what did I do ? Honestly I dont know ?

* I took 7.2 pounds off per wheel
* 7.2 off all 4 wheels = 28.8 pounds ( thats like taking out another spare tire)

7.2 x 4 wheels = 28.8
28.8 x 8 lbs. = 230.4 lbs

It would be like taking off 230.4 pounds from the chasis.

(* this is according to the calculations below)

 

I have heard a few differnt ways to measure the effect of reducing unsprug weight. The most common I have read is that for every 1lb reduced in wheel/tire weight is like the equivalent to 8lbs of sprug weight.
Your SSR's will have the effect of lightening your car by 224lbs.
Then there is the other saying that for every 100lbs of weight reduction your ET's will drop by .1
This maybe ricer math, I don't know, but I do know that ligher wheels will definately make you faster.

 

Articles:
Why smaller, mad light rims are better than hella phat dubs, yo!
By: Sarah Fairfield

Part of article
Rotational inertia is the resistance to a change in rotation. You've probably heard the example of the spinning ice skater. With arms extended, she has more rotational inertia. If she pulls her arms in towards her body, some mass has moved toward the center of rotation. Due to the conservation of energy, she must spin faster. Now she has less rotational inertia. By extrapolation, an object with mass closer to its center of rotation will take less energy to accelerate than an object of identical mass located further from its axis. Provided both have the same distribution of mass and the same amount of energy is applied, my 14-pound 15" wheel will accelerate faster than a 14-pound 17" wheel. That's simply because my wheel's mass is closer to the center of rotation. Next we'll see how this faster acceleration also helps my suspension keep my rims and tires on the road.

 

i dont think that 19in/15lb will be better than stock SE rims...prolly about the same if not worse. prolly not noticeable either way tho.

CEASAR!!! getting alittle crazy with Maxima peformance. not saying its bad...puts a smile on my face. I am guessing you will lose .1-.2 with those SSRs but I am not an expert on this subject.
problem is you havent maxed out what your car can do already...your car can hit 14.4-.5 with your mods and good driving/conditions. i would suggest more trips to the track before dumping $2500 into wheels. you will drop those 2 tenths with just more practice.

if you want you might want to check out the wheels that i bought. 17x7 Velox VX6-R...Sport Compact car weighed them at 14.4lbs. Velox claims they are 16.5lbs. I weighed them on my ghetto scale to be 15lbs. They look almost EXACTLY like SSR comps and are about half the price.

 

lucky i plan on testing my new wheel and tire combo this coming wednesday if all goes as scheduled. SSR Comp/Toyo Proxes

Working on getting my hands on the right ecu for the car - working like a dog for cash and still just cant seem to get all the money im needing !

 

For every pound you reduce your wheel/tire mass by, that's equivalent to about 8lb of translated chassis weight. And you also have 4 wheels and tires. So if you go from 50 lb 17" rims to 40 lb 16" rims, that comes out to...

10 lb x 8 x 4 whls/tires = 320 lb effectively reduced.


As for lighter rims for the rear non-drive wheels, it will still help. The wheels still require energy to accelerate just like the rest of the car, so the less energy they require to accelerate the better. The less power you have being diverted just to spin up big heavy rims, the better your overall acceleration will be.

A big part of the reason why the 3.0 5th Gen's weren't (for the most part) any quicker than the 4th Gen's despite having 32HP extra was because the SE's mostly came with big 50lb 17" rims vs the 40/42lb 16" rims from before and they sucked all the power away. The 3.0 5th Gen's with the 16" alloys or 15" steelies which are MUCH lighter have all been pretty darn quick. One guy ran a 15.2 in a 2000/auto with just an intake. It was a GXE with either the 15" steelies or the 16" alloys I think. Otherwise the best times were around 15.5/15.6 with intake only for the 17" ones.

See Maxima.org Battle of the Maxima 3.0's article.

 

The battle of the 3.0s is a great article. I have the 16s and I hit 15.1 last winter, but hopefully the light 19s will get me into the high 14s.

 

Have some real data of my own now.

Went to the track yesterday.
Ran several 15.0 on my 17" 52lb wheel/tire combo. Switched to 15" 30lb wheel/tire combo on the fronts only and ran a few 14.7-14.8.
Comparing my timeslips with the same 60', on the 17's and 15's, I gained an average of .25 in ET.

 

Wow, almost 3 tenths! That's a great improvement...

 

wow those are some sick numbers.

im about to go for some lightweight 14s and bust out some 13.xxx