What Wheel Size does your team run

[Chris Huggins]

Based on some current petitions, I am interested to know what the forum members are using for wheels.  I created a poll for you to enter your teams info.

 

 

In the chat, What are the widest wheels you have seen used in champcar?  What are the largest or smallest diameter wheels you have seen used?

[Black Magic]

On the neon we still have 14" wheels in our pile of spares, but extremely limited tire options in 14" size. 

 

Typically we run 15 x 7-8" wheels on all 4 corners. New car will have option of 15 x 19.5 e36 wheel using hub adapter

 

On the SLK we race in other series we fit c5 corvette z06 wheels using spacers. 17 x 9.5 front and 18 x 10.5 rear. Cheap aftermarket oe replacement wheels. 

 

Most of the tire options start to cap out around the 285 range in 18's. I think tire availability might sort of dictate wheel size being more rare above 11". Having to run rs4 for another series 285 is the widest you can go before going 19,s which at 305 are both an inch taller in diameter and very expensive. 

 

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0502/1037/3799/files/2021_Tire_Guide.pdf?v=1611258226content

 

I think if a soft tire brand make some 285+ wide tires in 25.5-26" OD or 23" OD you might have a wheel\tire war rage with foot wide wheels. Otherwise I think the wheel battles will be small cars like miata's (and my neon) trying to shove 10" wheels on a 2k lbs car. 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Black Magic

[mhr650]

Rumor has it that 275/35-15 200TW tires are on the horizon. These would need at least a 15X11 or maybe even a 15X12. If these take off in the Miata world like the 245/40-15 tires have wheels will become available.

[gundy]

31 minutes ago, mhr650 said:

Rumor has it that 275/35-15 200TW tires are on the horizon. 

that makes sense because Hooser already makes that size in auto-X tires

[smitham32803]

we have a bigger car so we run the factory replica ZR-1 wheels that are 17x9 up front and 17x11 in the rear.  For our next race we could not get the normal tires we typically use so we are using a set of C5 Z06 wheels that are 18x9.5 and 18x10.5.    I think this is pretty standard for the C4 corvette guys along with a lot of the F-Body guys as well.  

[wvumtnbkr]

I'd love a 255 15.

 

We run 15 x10 245 width.

[enginerd]

Why do we keep seeing these fixed limit petitions? Can't remember the specifics, but one of them said 'max 12" wheel width' or something like that. Any limit petitions should have some kind of scaling... A 10" wheel on an e30 is proportionately larger than a 13" wheel on a monte carlo, but only one of those cars would be hampered by a 'max 12" width' petition. 

[smitham32803]

I agree with the Max idea.  The max for  one car is not the same as the Max for another car...  A car that had a 14x5.5 wheel going to a 15x9 is a 63% increase in wheel width, but a car that had a  17x9.5 going to 17x11 is only a 15% increase.   There is also something to be said for older cars that had old technology and came with smaller and narrower wheels compared to newer cars.  

 

 

 

 

[Ronh911]

15x9 245

[frankrehnelt]

15x9 245

 

 

[Timothy G. Elliott]

14x6x185

[kevind43]

4th gen EC camaro v-8/3200+lb

 

17x9.5 255

17x11 275

18x10.5 285 or 295

 

widest i have seen 18x12's- IMO have no place in champcar. 

 

i would be in favor of a 17x11 max wheel size even though we would have to get rid of the 18"s. 18" tires are stupid expensive and i wouldnt mind not running them.

17x11 only because the zr1 replicas are inexpensive and readily available for the v-8 cars. 

 

tire rule proposal(may need tweaking)

 

10mm for every 100lb as raced w/o driver with a max of 295mm section width. 

 

up to 2200#=225max

2400#=245

2700#=275

2900#=295

3100#=295

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by kevind43

[scottyk]

Does it really matter, it’s champcar. 

[MichaelPal]

Who the hell put 21"???

 

[TKRiggs]

19 hours ago, enginerd said:

Why do we keep seeing these fixed limit petitions? Can't remember the specifics, but one of them said 'max 12" wheel width' or something like that. Any limit petitions should have some kind of scaling... A 10" wheel on an e30 is proportionately larger than a 13" wheel on a monte carlo, but only one of those cars would be hampered by a 'max 12" width' petition. 

 

With this logic we should allow 6 pot calipers on cars above 2800lbs no?  

[Team Infiniti]

For our weight, we are way under tired, on too narrow wheel running 255-40-17 on 9s

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Team Infiniti

[Snorman]

9 hours ago, scottyk said:

Does it really matter, it’s champcar. 

lol...I predicted last year that they would go after tires sizes. This is just another means to that end. Limit cars to a 17" wheel and a 275 mm tire so that the bigger, heavier, higher hp cars are under-tired compared to...oh...say...an E30 with a 245 or 255 on it. 

[turbogrill]

With the datsun I had to custom make wheels to get 15x10". They where $100 each and 18lbs. My Miata 17x10 off the shelf wheels cost ~$250 each. 

 

[gundy]

On 3/16/2022 at 2:26 PM, enginerd said:

Why do we keep seeing these fixed limit petitions? 

We already have limits.

4.8. TIRE SPECIFICATIONS FOR ALL CLASSES 4.8.1. Tires: Tire must be DOT legal and the UTQG treadwear rated at 180 or higher. 4.8.1.1. While tire size is open, tires may not extend beyond the cover of the fenders from the 10 to 2 o’clock positions. Fenders can be stretched/rolled to cover wider tires and flares can even be made, however any added materials used to enlarge the fenders will be charged at the material rate in 4.3.2

[enginerd]

2 minutes ago, gundy said:

We already have limits.

4.8. TIRE SPECIFICATIONS FOR ALL CLASSES 4.8.1. Tires: Tire must be DOT legal and the UTQG treadwear rated at 180 or higher. 4.8.1.1. While tire size is open, tires may not extend beyond the cover of the fenders from the 10 to 2 o’clock positions. Fenders can be stretched/rolled to cover wider tires and flares can even be made, however any added materials used to enlarge the fenders will be charged at the material rate in 4.3.2

Do more explaining, please. Here's the meat of the petition I was talking about:

I propose to set a limit of 10.5 inches wheel/rim width rule.

[smitham32803]

3 minutes ago, enginerd said:

Do more explaining, please. Here's the meat of the petition I was talking about:

I propose to set a limit of 10.5 inches wheel/rim width rule.

 

I disagree with 10.5.  As stated above there are a fair number of members who race American cars and use economical ZR1 replica wheels that are 17x11.  Again these wider wheels are being used on larger cars that weigh close to the 3,000# mark not smaller Miata / E30 cars that weigh under 2,500#.   

[turbogrill]

If you race a 3000lbs car and need 19x11 then it's a choice. I race Miata because they are cheap

[enginerd]

56 minutes ago, turbogrill said:

If you race a 3000lbs car and need 19x11 then it's a choice. I race Miata because they are cheap

The series strives to have a diverse field of cars and make almost any car viable. Restricting the wheel choice for those large cars goes against this goal.

You race a miata because they are cheap. Someone else races a lincoln because he likes lincolns. Someone else races a monte carlo because he likes big V8 grunt and american iron. All of these people should have a home in ChampCar. Restricting wheel choice for the big cars but not the miata wouldn't make ChampCar a welcoming series for them.

 

BTW I'm not advocating a proportional restriction on wheels. e30 and miata teams have untold thousands invested in 9"/10" wheels. So that restriction is off the table, and because we shouldn't restrict those wheels from those teams, we also shouldn't restrict the wheel choice of the big cars.

Edited March 18, 2022 by enginerd

[turbogrill]

15 hours ago, enginerd said:

The series strives to have a diverse field of cars and make almost any car viable. Restricting the wheel choice for those large cars goes against this goal.

You race a miata because they are cheap. Someone else races a lincoln because he likes lincolns. Someone else races a monte carlo because he likes big V8 grunt and american iron. All of these people should have a home in ChampCar. Restricting wheel choice for the big cars but not the miata wouldn't make ChampCar a welcoming series for them.

 

BTW I'm not advocating a proportional restriction on wheels. e30 and miata teams have untold thousands invested in 9"/10" wheels. So that restriction is off the table, and because we shouldn't restrict those wheels from those teams, we also shouldn't restrict the wheel choice of the big cars.

 

Agree, so having a width restriction would eliminate other cars. 

 

[Snorman]

1 hour ago, turbogrill said:

 

Agree, so having a width restriction would eliminate other cars. 

 

The 10.5" wheel width limit petition is a laughable and transparent attempt to handicap certain cars just like the petition to limit wheel diameter. IMO the former is even more stupid because it seeks to eliminate a "performance advantage". I was unaware Champcar was a spec series.