fuzzysig

from the old miata wheel weight charts it seems like cp-035 and te37 plus one or two other wheels are the lightest overall weight for most typical sizes

but what they dont list is the barrel weight
since thats where most of rotational mass will come from. is there any research or tests done which wheel is actually best for acceleration?

having both the cp-035 and le-37t with same wheel size and same tires on same car i felt like le-37t accelerated better even with cp-035 being lighter overall weight
and definitely felt slower when i put konig villian or even 16lb OZ superleggera wheels of same size

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

Without having a cross-section, it'd be rather difficult to measure where the mass of the wheel is propagated. The only kind of wheel out there that it'd be easy to measure, would be in multi-piece wheels, where you can separate the face from the barrel.

As for comparing wheels of extremely similar weight, you need to take into account tire weight... if you want to be that pedantic about it. To be fair, I highly doubt there would be a consistently measurable difference between a car running identical tires on two different wheel designs of identical overall weight. There's just too many variables at that point (driver consistency, temperatures of all measurable components, wind resistance, etc...) to even begin to notice a definable difference between the two.

fuzzysig

tires were same.

is there any info on what exact alloy was used in those two wheels?
maybe if i can find the sample weight of the alloy for each wheel i can calculate the barrel weight somewhat accurately

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

Did you weigh each set, though? Tires vary in weight, even when you look at the same brand, model, and tire size. Different batches almost always have different weights.

If you intend to be this critical over weight distribution on the wheel itself, I can assure you that knowing weight distribution and overall mass on the tire will have just as significant an impact (albeit, the overall impact will be exceedingly minuscule in the overall grand scheme).

Calculating the mass of the barrel will still require accurate measurements on material thickness across the entire surface of the barrel. They're never a consistent thickness on one-piece designs, due to the nature of production. So, you'll need to either have a nice set of deep opening micrometers, a cross sectional cut of the wheel, or some form of accurate 3D mapping to model the wheel.

Something else to consider in this whole process is how accurate the data you started off with is. The Miata wheel weight chart may not be 100% accurate for your specific wheels. So, assuming that information isn't different from your application, is a rather big leap of faith and it kind of taints the actual merit of this entire endeavor.

fuzzysig

i did weigh them actually

yes im that **** sometimes.
mostly when im bored and cant find what im looking for in my garage
miate wheel weight was pretty accurate for those two
the wheel and tire weight separately from tire rack was pretty spot on

1 find the weight of material
2 place each barrel in the water of same depth(half of the barrel) and see how much space it displaces...