yel76low

Just wondering, how much do our stock wheels weigh? (Just the rim without a tire mounted.) Also, does someone have the link to the C5 post with all the C5 wheel weights?

Thanks.

yel76low

Anyone...?

DZRick

I can get a bare 15x8 steel ralley weighed if that will help.

Let me know if this is what your looking for.

Rick

yel76low

That would be awesome.

Jay-Dog

I don't have your answer, but I know plenty of people who swear by lighter unsprung weight to give their cars better cornering. I'll bet my vette ralleys weight twice what my Miata rims weigh.

BenUK

I know it's not what you wanted, but for anybody else who's searching for this data in the future I just measured one of my factory alloys and it weighs 19.2 pounds (8.7 kilos).

wfo76

I remember an old brochure (76?) that said that the aluminum wheels saved 32 pounds so guess that means the rallys are 27 lbs

yel76low

Wow, 27 lbs. Doesn't surprise me, but man that's heavy. Does anyone have a bare ralley sitting around that they could throw on a scale to corfirm this?

And OEM C5 Z06 wheels are like 19lbs, or something like that, right?

Yet another reason to switch to Z06 wheels.............. saves 32lbs of rotating weight!

yel76low

Actually, found all the C5 weights....

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...hlight=weights

4 front magnesium rims would save 40lbs of rotating weight on the car... except that I would assume the weight of the tires would be different, and you'd have to add a bit of weight for the spacers that you need. Does someone have a mounted ralley wheel that's not on their car that they could weigh? (My wheels are on my car, and besides that, I don't have a scale...)

panic

If the task is to save rotating weight, You'd have to consider also the weight of the tire, bias ply dot rubber (like the 'street/track sportcar hoosiers) is at least half the weight of a standard radial perf tire...

yel76low

Yeah, that's what I was just saying. But, I need street tires, I'm not actually on a track at all yet... and when I am it's just going to be autocrossing and such.

DZRick

I was at TrueValue today, where I was going to use their scale and didn't bring a wheel with me:o

petronix

I would bet that c5 wheels with the spacers necessary to make them fit are a bit heavier than stock steel wheels. I have the wheels and spacers in my garage. I can weigh them. I don't have a naked steel wheel to weigh though.

yel76low

If the steel wheels are actually 27lbs, I would imagine we'd still be on the good side using those spacers. They can't weigh 8lbs per spacer when they're made of aluminum. But yeah, weigh one of those suckers and let us know how much they do weigh.

So, another interesting note. You always hear people talking about how rotating weight is like 4x (or 8x) regular weight. So I decided to do the calculations - accounting for both the rotational and translational terms of kinetic energy. From my calculations it seems that rotating weight is about 2x regular weight, strictly in terms of the amount of energy needed to accelerate or decelerate. (It was ~2.3x when using the same diameter rim, and ~1.8x when increasing the rim diameter from 15" to 17"). I'd be interested to see if someone has some other calculations to see where this 4-8x number came from. Anyone? (Of course, my calculations are just for acceleration, not for cornering. They do not account for that fact that lowering the wheel weight lowers the unsprung weight, which should also have an impact on cornering.)

Hadez

yel76low....I like where you are going with your calculations. My approach to things if I am switching them out is lightweight & efficient also.

My ralleys weighed in at 22.5lbs when I weighed them separately.. There is no way they are at 28lbs. The steel drum is too thin to weigh 28lbs. To confirm my sanity I weighed last night my full size spare 15x8 ralley with a 235/60/15 tire & ralley wheel total weight is 48.6lbs & according to tire rack the tire weighs 26lbs => 22.6lbs. Only the cast wheels such as Boyd's or Foose weigh close to 28lbs because they need to make them thick enough to not bend on the street because they are cheapo metal cast. I was originally going to go with an 18" Boyd or Foose wheel but found out all of them are cast wheels and weigh at least 25lbs!!! So I ended up buy a set of forged Bonspeed wheels costing an arm/leg but worth it. The fronts are 18x8 with 245/45/18 tire weighing exactly 50lbs which is actually 1lb lighter than my ralley with a 255/60/15 tire mounted. I did not want to add any extra unsprung weight. My rears are a tad heavier 18x10 with 275/40/18 but I dig the look big time and it is only a couple pounds heavier mainly due to the tire being 3lbs heaver. You have to make sure you match your tire selection with the wheels as you don't want to get lighter wheels and then put on such a big tire that it negates most of your efforts to reduce unsprung weight.

I ran some back to back 1/4 mile times with my other car (automatic) I use to have between forged 15" BBS vs. 18" OZ Racing where weight diffence was 8lbs per wheel. I ran a consistent 0.1s faster ET with the lighter skinnier wheels. I had a little more wheel slip off the line with the 215/60/15's, but I was moving a lot quicker compared to the heavier & wider wheels. I put back on the 15" wheels at the end and made 2 more passes and it was all the same....0.1s faster and I spent all day at the track running almost 20 times. This was changing out all 4 wheels. You can really feel the difference in both acceleration & braking when you change your unsprung weight.

kayosnes

Also:

Annyone know what 17x8 and 17x10 torque trust wheels weights compared with the stock tires. (what i am evaluating to change to when i get my finger out and buy new rims)

also would you save weight with going to 18" rims insted of 17"?? (and yes i know the rim will be heavier, but i guess the tire would maybee make up for that.)

petronix

I just weighed a 2.5 in VBP spacer and a 2000 c5 thinspoke rear wheel on my bathroom scale.

The spacer weighed about 8 lbs, including the extra lug nuts (and studs) necessary to mount it. I think the second set of studs and lug nuts probably weigh more than the aluminum spacer itself.

The 18 x 9.5 wheel weighed about 19.5 pounds with center cap.

yel76low

Awesome, thanks for the weights, guys!

But darn, I was really hoping those spacers wouldn't weigh so much. I wanted another reason to switch my wheels... although it already will drastically improve handling and looks...

GUSTO14

I happened to be weighing some C5 ZO-6 wheels a while back and decided to weigh the '82 Collector Edition wheels I happen to have a set of. The CE wheels weighed 18.5 pounds each without the star-burst caps. The caps couldn't weigh more than a pound each, but I didn't think to weigh them at the time.

Just for info, I was weighing a set of OE (aftermarket) ZO-6 wheels against a stock set of Speedline ZO-6 wheels and was quite surprised by the difference...

Stock ZO-6 Front's 18 lbs Rear's 19 lbs
OE ZO-6 Front's 21.5 lbs Rear's 22 lbs

Needless to say they're pretty close...

Good luck... GUSTO

DZRick

I finally got to weigh one of my 69 steel wheels today and it came in at exactly 25 lbs.