would anyone recommend 17's for auotx. I drive a 5th gen lude and currently have 17x7 shitty ADR wheels, heavy as hell. planned on getting slipstream's attacks or sub zero rotas. would it be possible to use 17's for autox, cuz I already have new tires in 17..paradas. rather use these up before i buy new wheels to avoid buying both wheels and tires. i still have my stock 16's which i contemplated just slapping on some azenis and calling it good. but I think eventually I want to get rota's for their lightweight.

my car is 97 Prelude SH, w/Ground Control Coilovers....
thanx for the help yall.

 

Use the stock alloys for AX since Honda wheels are generally pretty light and get some decent tires for these. the 16s should have less inertia (quicker accel) than 17s and for sure heavy 17s.

You may even want to drop the aspect ratio on the 16s (smaller OD) for the gearing change to improve drive out of corners.

 

Stock wheels would be better. Many prelude autocrossers drop to 15's if the class allows.

 

Considering you have suspension mods, you fall outta the stock classes already. Next you have to decide which class you wanna run in. The SH can run in STX (i think, because of the ATTS) or DSP. The moneywise decision would be of course to run some 215-45-16 Azenis on the stock 16" rims, which weigh almost 20lbs BTW. The 15" option is not a really good idea, since the Azenis is only available in a smallish 205-50-15 size, and the SH with it's 3000+ lbs need more contact patch than that. As long as Falken does not start making wider 15" tires, 16-17" lightweight wheels with 215-225 rubbers is the best option for heavy cars like the Lude, at least for ST classes...

The other thing to consider is to get some 15x7.5 or 15x8 lightweight wheels and slap some 225-50-15 or 225-45-15 r-compound tires and go into DSP...


JS, who misses his 98SH...




[Modified by jsi, 2:13 PM 10/15/2002]

 

This was my 1st season autoXing, and I have a Base '00 Prelude. I was running on some light forged 17x7.5" wheels and 215/45/17 Bridgestone S-03s. These were my daily driver wheels as well, and I was burning up a lot of tire at autoX. So I just picked up a set of used 16x7.5" Kosei K1s that I plan to mount the 215/45/16 Azenis on for next year. Then the K1s will be my autoX only wheels. I went with the K1s over the Rotas because the 16" Rotas are only available in 7" wide. The 7" wide should still be OK with the 215/45/16 Azenis (or even your stock 6.5" wheels). But since the Azenis are so wide, I did not think that turn in response would be as good as with a 7.5" wide wheel.

Also, if you were interested in 15" wheels, http://www.machiii.net has a killer deal on 15x7 +43 Stern wheels to fit a Prelude. I agree that the 205/50/15 Azenis might be a bit narrow for the Prelude, but I know of other Prelude autoXers running well on that size Azenis. There are also some wider BS S-03 and BFG KD tire choices in the 15" size.

Andrew