Wheel Mass

[C280/////AMG]

I just sold my 17'' AMG AERO II replicas because they were too heavy (each wheel and tyre combined weighed 44lb) and as a result compromised my car's straight line performance, as well as it's handling qualities.

I would like to replace them with original AMG wheels, but before i start hunting around i'd like to know how much each AMG wheel style weighs (rim and tyre combined, and the rim mass by itself too, if possible). I want to find the lightest AMG wheel to minimise my unsprung weight, but without compromising asthetics.

So could all you guys that have original AMGs accesible (17" and 18" in particular) help me by weighing your wheel? Thanks

[Pagz]

My 19" fronts weigh in at around 48lbs,with the rears around 52 i think!,it definalty effects performance overall.
goodluck finding the weights,this link may help you=)

http://www.wheelweights.net/

Paul

[digital2620]

Go to www.TireRack.com

They have the wheel weights for the AMG wheels. Not sure about combined w/ tires.

[Kompressor_Dude]

Do the replica's tend to be heavier than the original AMG's then?

[C280/////AMG]

Originally posted by 23K
My 19" fronts weigh in at around 48lbs,with the rears around 52 i think!,it definalty effects performance overall.
goodluck finding the weights,this link may help you=)

http://www.wheelweights.net/

Paul

Thanks 23T!!!

This site is fantastic!!! Only thing is that it only lists one type of AMG wheel.

[C280/////AMG]

Originally posted by digital2620
Go to www.TireRack.com

They have the wheel weights for the AMG wheels. Not sure about combined w/ tires.

Where do they show weights?

[strictlyspeakin]

select make, year, model, then wheel.

you'll get a list

click the size on any rim you are interested in eg: 17" or 18"

it'll pop a new area containing addt'l info

hth

[Nitrogenbalance]

Some of the regular MB wheels are actually lighter than the cast AMG one's. I had this same egg hunt a year ago and decieded that the AMG wheels are just too heavy. I recall finding a 17x7.5 at 24lbs being the lightest........

Tire rack has BBS RC wheels in 17x8 and 17x9 which both weigh 19lbs. Well priced and you could use your stock tires as well. If you are really serious check out some custom wheels like the ones from forgeline or SSR or something. Your gonna have trouble finding anything under 20lbs that isn't pricey.

They say one pound equals four pounds once in motion. Defenitly an important are that is many times overlooked.

[C280/////AMG]

Originally posted by Nitrogenbalance
Some of the regular MB wheels are actually lighter than the cast AMG one's. I had this same egg hunt a year ago and decieded that the AMG wheels are just too heavy. I recall finding a 17x7.5 at 24lbs being the lightest........

Tire rack has BBS RC wheels in 17x8 and 17x9 which both weigh 19lbs. Well priced and you could use your stock tires as well. If you are really serious check out some custom wheels like the ones from forgeline or SSR or something. Your gonna have trouble finding anything under 20lbs that isn't pricey.

They say one pound equals four pounds once in motion. Defenitly an important are that is many times overlooked.

I agree with you 100%. I've just realised how many people overlook the fact that you are seriously compromising your car's performance (both straight line and especially handling) and overall comfort and feel by fitting heavy wheels.

I read on wheelweights.net that 1lb on the wheel is the same as 2lb on the rest of the car, but i think that your figure is far more accurate according to my experience.

Funny you mention it, i'm actually considering a set of BBS rims.
Do you know whether Brabus wheels are heavy or not?

[c55m8o]

C280, reading this might interest you , and I have a follow-up further down. There's also a link to another post on another board where I originated this from with even more detail about results of the spreadsheet I made containing all the moment of inertia calculations.

...really what you want to get are the lightest tires you can find, with the weight of the rims being secondary. With the rim design I was simulating I found 1 lb of tire weight is about 3 lbs of rim weight (approx; dependant on the the rim's hub/spoke/drum style) in the amount of work that the engine needs to perform to spin them up. It kept me from buying my favorite in stickie tires again, Bridgestone Potenza SO-3. Michelin Pilots were the lightest; but a bad experience with the stock 1st gen Pilots kept me from buying them again. So I opted for Dunlops, which I'm love'n a lot and were only a little heavier then the Michelins, and a proportionatly a lot lighter then the Bridgestones.

[C280/////AMG]

c55, that info is incredible!!! Thanks alot! It's solved all my uncertainties regarding wheel mass.

I'm deciding to look for a set of original c43 AMG wheels, as they taper as they approach the drum, so they should be lighter and should have less rotating inertia than my AEROIIs. What wheels you runnin on?

Secondly, i'm a fan of Michelins, so it's great news to hear that they're the lightest. What bad experience did you have with your pilots?

Thirdly, i want to run 225/45/17 at the front and 235/40/17 at the rear since i've found that tyre 'revolutions per mile' also play a huge role when it comes to acceleration, and the 235 /40 has about 15 rev/mile more than the 225s (I know this will make my speedo over-read, but i don't mind). But i don't want to put the 235's all round as (1) it will affect my ABS calibration and
(2) i don't want my car to be too low. (i found that when i used 205/60/15 tyres instead of the standard 195/65/15, my car would scrape on most speed bumps, indicating that it's lower)

What you think?

[Nitrogenbalance]

I still think you should buy lighter wheels. If you are staying with 17" you could find a good -4lbs lighter each. The wheels will still help being lighter. Doing both would be better than one or the other.

[C280/////AMG]

Nitro, i agree with you, as before i had the aero IIs, and now i'm looking for some lighter wheels, such as the c43 wheels. I know they're not the lightest, but i don't want my car to look like a DTM car at the same time...i like the conservative look with a sporty edge.

[c55m8o]

C280,
I'm with nitrogenbalance. The stock C43 wheels are the ones that are 26.5lb front and 28lb rear...

You can see the rims I run in my many links in my sig, especially 'My C43/55' . They are Kinesis that were originally K58 (stepped drum) that I had re-drummed to one-of-a-kind K57R (17" reverse) that they never released. They had the drums in storage after experimenting, and since I kept bending 18" rims, I talked them into making me 17" reverse rims (which I like the look of better) using their stock they had in storage, before they sold it to the recycler. (I bought up a lot of extra stock incase I bend more drums even this way). I forget exactly but they're I think 23.5 and 24.5 lbs or something like that. [edit: correction -- They weigh 22.3 lb front, and rear is 23.5 lbs. ]

the 1st gen Pilots were 'slippery' for me. I suffered extreme understeer at under 50mph and slid the car into a curb when new with around 5000 miles on it. I was left taking a 3 hour train ride to get home that day. I think the Pilots are on the 3rd or 4th gen now; I'm still reluctant to try them again tho.

I did an analysis once of bigger and smaller tires in the rear, and how that simulated shorter gearing and acceleration.
< here > ....scroll up for the simulation in graphical form. REALIZE tho, I'm using my 5.4L engine's torque curve measured @ the wheels as basis. Different torque curves result in very different gearing optimization!

I think I recall from speedybenz that if you go too small in the rear, your cruise control might stop working.

[Nitrogenbalance]

....and I think that I've gone too big in the rear because my cruise control doesn't work anymore too. 255/40/17 is what I'm using now. I had to do some fender/body work to tuck them in without any rubbing as the width was a tiny bit much.

C55m80 !!! Can you post some more pics of your 17" kinesis wheels on the car?? I checked your link but it wasn't enough and most pictures were the stepped lip 18"s. I'm closing in on having a set of wheels made and I'm 90% sure I'm going 17"s for the same reasons. I was thinking of going 17x8-17x10 reverse lip.

[c55m8o]

... you really need more then this?!



( lol -- please pardon my whoring of one of my favorite pix ever every chance I get! )

In all seriousness, I have more pix. The day was real 'grey' they were shot. I need to do some image processing to increase brightness and contrast before I post them to my Fotki gallery. I need to get off my fat arse. I'll do it soon.

( what you see there is 17x8.5 and 17x9.5 )

[Green Lantern]

hmm new york...what part u live in?

[c55m8o]

Originally posted by Green Lantern
hmm new york...what part u live in?

I live out on LI (NW Suffolk county) and I have a place in NYC where I'm @ some weekends.

[Nitrogenbalance]

YES!! a few more pics would be great. I have a feeling the 17"s are gonna look sick with the deep lip and all, I just neeeed to be sure. Even boring shots are fine if they show how the wheel sizes fit the car.

Also, what are the offsets you went with. I'm being told 40 for the rear if I use the 17x10".

THanks again, and that picture looks perfect.

[c55m8o]

Originally posted by Nitrogenbalance
YES!! a few more pics would be great.

I cleaned a bunch'a pix up. You can see more in my 'Rebuilt Rims' gallery, and the 'AMGFest 2006' gallery
... another interesting example:

[Nitrogenbalance]

Thanks again dooood!

So I've got narrowed down to a few styles and would appreciate some feedback opinions. Iforged has qouted me the best deal and are one of the few left that can make a 17" reverse lip.

Iforged Senaka:
http://www.iforged.com/showroom/main.php?g2_itemId=1558

Iforged Flux:
http://www.iforged.com/showroom/main.php?g2_itemId=1543

Iforged Swift:
http://www.iforged.com/showroom/main.php?g2_itemId=1564

Iforged Equip:
http://www.iforged.com/showroom/main.php?g2_itemId=1630

These wheel choices truly show I'm scatterbrained. I like them all with the equip being my favorite at the moment......so difficult to chose. I'm leaning towards the center color to be paint matched silver to my car or brushed finish. Simple and timeless opposed to gold,black, and things that become trendy.

thoughts.....

[C280/////AMG]

Hey guys, been buried in work for the last 4 days...let the thread slide a bit...

c55, your research is truly amazing, thanks!

If the c43 wheels weigh that much, i don't even want to imagine the weight of the Aero IIs!

Regarding the wheels, i'm not gonna set my mind to any design yet, just gonna wait for a good deal and see what comes up, but i would like to stick to AMGs ideally...

However those 'iforged' rims look pretty hot too!

About the tyres, it's actually funny you said that, cos i found exactly the same thing! I had the Pilot Sport (not sure which gen, they had the V-shaped tread with the solid strip running down the middle) on my 17s and i found them so slippery that if i had to put my foot flat down in 2nd gear round a corner, 9 times out of 10 the tail would sweep out. This also makes me a bit weary about the new sports.

I have the pilot primacy's on my 15'' wheels, and i find that this is truly an uncompromised tyre...i've managed 70 000kn out of them so far (of which they were probably squealing round corners half the time!), and can probably do another 5000. And the grip on them in dry and especially wet is probably twice that of the pilot sports!

So from my experience, i'm a bit hesitant to go with the pilot sports again. If i could choose, i'd go for the michelin primacy hp, which is the replacement of the pilot primacy. The only problem is that i'm looking for a 235/40/17 for the rears, but michelin only makes a pilot sport in this size.

My alternative is to go with the primacy hp tyre in 225/45/17 in the front, and 245/40/17 at the rear.

But then, according to your research, changing the tyre size slightly won't make such a difference in terms of acceleration
If i had to use the 245/40 instead of the 235/40 at the rear, what kind of performance decrease could I expect in terms of acceleration? (How many carlengths/fractions of a second?)

[c55m8o]

Originally posted by C280/////AMG My alternative is to go with the primacy hp tyre in 225/45/17 in the front, and 245/40/17 at the rear.

But then, according to your research, changing the tyre size slightly won't make such a difference in terms of acceleration
If i had to use the 245/40 instead of the 235/40 at the rear, what kind of performance decrease could I expect in terms of acceleration? (How many carlengths/fractions of a second?) [/B]

Negligible. CarTest2000 states and simulates this for your 1995 C280 :
- in stock form with the 15inch rims
0-60: 7.64 sec
1/4 mile: 16.10 sec

- 234/35-17:
0-60: 7.73 sec
1/4 mile: 16.12 sec

- 245/45-17:
0-60: 7.77 sec
1/4 mile: 16.13sec

However, that is just using all the stock parameters built into it. The weight of the combined tire and rim package can be altered, but I dont' know what that is so I'm not doing that here. Just letting it simulate how diameter affects the outcome.

CarTest2000 .... Great program for simulation:
www.cartestsoftware.com
There's a learning curve, but a real payoff if you learn it, as you saw in that previous post of mine citing the simulation. That's a minuscule amount of what that program can do.

[C280/////AMG]

Well that's solved that then!! Gonna go with the primacy hp 245/40 at rear.

[Nitrogenbalance]

Totally didn't mean to hyjack your thread bud. Going back and forth with C55m80 I forgot and thought it was a post of mine or something....