Hello

[stewart]

Hi all,

Just an introduction.

My name is Stewart Cooke, and I'm a Stratos Replica Club member from Brisbane, Australia.

My car is a Hawk fitted with a Nissan Maxima 3l V6, which has necessitated extensive refabrication in the rear end. The car WILL be finished by September (no laughing form those who know me!) It is Lamborghini Fly yellow in colour, runs an autronic engine management system and 190BHP at the wheels.

I am running 16 inch wheels to pick on an ongoing conversation, and am having many problems with offset etc. I should have wheels soon, so will provide details for those interested. Sizes will be 16X7 front with 205 50 16 tyres and 16X7.5 rear with 225 50 16 tyres. There is not a lot of room in the front of the front wheel arch's though which is of concern.

I will post some photo's sometime soon.

Talk later

regards,

Stewart

[CorseChris]

Hi Stewart,

I am interested in how you get on with the 16" rims. I was considering these for my Corse S build but have decided (at the moment anyway!) to go with 15" as per kit specifications. In the end, my main reason for this was ride comfort. I converted my Alfa 155 from 15" to 16" a while back and regrettted it, I also converted the Marcos to 16" a few years back (used to be on 14" with 205/60 tyres) although with this particular car, I changed so much else that it ended up being a much more confortable ride despite the loss of compliance in the tyre sidewall. The fact that the bottom didn't keep hitting the ground anymore helped with this quite a bit I think.......

Having said all this, your choice of profiles and widths looks pretty sound to my uneducated eye so it'll probably work out well for ride - the lower profile tyres (45 and down on the 205 - 245 width range) seem to get very uncomfortable on normal roads.


Chris

[Matt No VAT]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with a dilemma on wheel sizes and offsets.

I'll be speaking with Gery Hawkridge shortly as I have some bits for him so I'll post up the details I get from him.

I will definately avoid anything lower than a 50 profile on 205+ width, I put 205/45's on my road legal Integrale track car - and regretted within minutes of driving out of the tyre fitters. For the track it was fine but for the UK roads (which are in a very very poor state) driving was unbearable.

Unless of course you like being shaken so much your real teeth fall out as well as the fillings!

[stewart]

Hi Matt/Chris,

The wheel issue is actually a bit of a problem. I decided to go with 16's as much for availability of tyres as anything. I run 17in on my WRX and previously on my Skyline, and our roads are as bad as the UK believe me. Hard suspension doesn't help!

I certainly wouldn't go under a 50 profile for the ride comfort issue, but with anything higher there is no way I will fit them in under the front guards. The 4.5 inch backspace recommended in the build manual will not work as I have tried. For some reason my wheels look too far forward in the guards, but it may be that we haven't taken enough off the front of the arch. I will be upset though if we have to ruin the paintwork to do that.

It is the arc of the turn inside the front guard that is the problem. I have had to take about 20 measurements of calipers discs etc etc for the wheel manufacturers in order to get the wheels made. At the rear, even though the maxima track is within 5mm of the Alfa, I again cannot use a 4.5in backspace as the wheels are too far out. The reason behind this was explained to me but with my lack of technical know how it went over my head.

I am just debating what wheels to get at present. None of the three piece wheels available out here really grab me, and I thought of actually importing some Image wheels from the UK, but I think it is all too much like hard work. I had hoped to get some off the shelf wheels but no chance I'm afraid.

I will keep you updated on how I fare, but expect to order wheels within the next couple of weeks when I bite the bullet and decide on a design.

cheers

[David May]

I was forced to go down from 215/55VR16 to 205/45ZR16 rears (due to a typing error on the importation documents) and haven't regretted it, even on rough Italian back-roads.

The car is still (relatively) comfortable and is a lot more perdictable beyond the limit.

Going up to 650 lb" rear springs however has definately increased the teeth-chatter but has solved some rear-end instability problems (Corse I) and with the dampers wound up very hard is just about adequte for serious track use.

David May

[Stratos]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the wheel diameter for the CAE Corse specified as 16inch?

I'm sure that Jan Leach and Tony Aylott have 16 inch on their car.

[CorseChris]

Hugh told me 15" (7 front, 8 rear) which I have taken as spec. Maybe the S was intended to use 15" and the I 16"?? Not that it matters that much overall, really depends on what we want to achieve I guess.

[Stratos]

On my new S kit, I was going to use 16inch wheels, so that I could fit larger brakes.

I don't think the rear should be a problem for 16inch at all, but I intended to look at Jan's car at Abingdon to see how much clearance there was at the front.

I'm not really sure what size tyres Jan's car is running, but I believe that, when I saw it a couple of years ago at Hugh's factory, it had 205/50x16 on the front.

But, looking in the Demon Tweeks catalogue, and using Yokohamas as an example, a 205/55x15 has a diameter of 23.9inches and a 205/50x16 has a diameter of 24.0inches.

I am running 205/55x15 on the front of my current car, so I don't see that there should be a problem running 205/50x16.

Wheel sizes on my current car are 15x7 all round.

[CorseChris]

Hi David,

I too have been around the houses on the profile/diameter thing but in the end, decided that I wanted the larger profile to give a softer ride. Clearly this will compromise ultimate grip, but to be honest, the chassis is so much more capable than I could ever hope to be that I don't think I am going to miss much!

My front brakes will be a bit larger than standard but I don't think I will have a problem getting the 15" rims on. I will, of course, check this carefully before spending any money.......

If it comes to it, I guess I'll have to go for 16" but I'd rather not.

Didn't Neil run 15" on his S as well??

[Stratos]

When you say that your brakes are quite a bit larger that standard, what size is that?

Depending on the caliper, you can get right up to 310mm inside a 15inch rim. That's what is on the front of mine now, but I needed very low profile calipers to achieve this.

Cost of course is another factor. There seems to be quite a jump in price between 15 and 16 inch wheels.

I'm not really sure what Neil had on his car.

[CorseChris]

I am using discs very similar to those Gary Lomas used to have on his car. I haven't actually measured them but they aren't that big. I plan on using 4 pot Wilwood billet calipers. I thought I should get all the bits together and fitted, then make the final choice after that.

Re the cost, I reckon I would save about £200 on a set of 4 if I go with 15"

[David May]

The way production car (road and racing) sizes are going, it looks as though 17" is taking over from 16", already having a good selection of (wide) sizes and rapidly falling prices.
As long as the spring rates are not excessive I have never found any comfort disadvantage in low profiles but only improved responses.

I use 16" (Image) wheels for road use (higher gearing) and low-profile 15" for racing (lower gearing, lower ride-height) but if I were to start again (my Corse I was started in 1997) I would probably go for 17" from the start (although Image have been slow to provide that size in the designs that I like.)

Dave May

[David May]

I don't think Hugh ever had a 'standard' rim size, but he recommended me to go for 15" with 205 front tyres and 225 rears. Since I didn't fit the Gp4 arches (won't go in my garage) I had to use -53mm ET rears to get even 215 tyres under the arches (Image got that by fitting the outer rim to the inside of the wheel centre - looks odd but works OK!)

Dave

[CorseChris]

Dave, chaps,

I think this is going to run and run isn't it!

I am using round Gp4 arches so have a bit more freedom with offset. I was also looking at 205 front 225 rear which sounded pretty good all round for what I want. Still can't quite decide on 15 or 16 though...... I will probably end up making some mock-ups of the two options and offering them up to see which looks best. I want to retain the overall sizes that 205/55/15 and 225/50/15 would give, while avoiding anything smaller than 45 profile though. Quite possible but still a difficult choice.

Still, it's going to be along time before I have to decide so maybe I can just copy someone else :)

Chris

[Stratos]

Chris,

Gary Lomas runs 205/50x15 front and 225/50x15 rear road tyres on his Corse S.