NineVettes

My private party deal wheels were put on today - a set of Forgeline VX1Rs finished in carbon flash with red pin striping. Quick in the garage camera phone snap is attached. Will do more and better pics as time allows. Pleasure to be rid of the bent wheels (two of 'em) and the teeth chattering ride that accompanied them. New wheels took very, very little weights to achieve perfect balance. Had the old and new wheels weighed electronically to see the differences. All of the weights (a lot more than the new wheels needed) were removed prior to weighing. Old wheels were: Front- 27.6, Rear - 28.8. New wheels were: Front - 19.5, Rear - 22. Total delta between new and old wheels was 29.8 lbs - which is right on the mark for the 30 lbs reduction in unsprung rotational weight I was expecting.

A close friend I grew up with (and a much smarter guy than me) is a scientist at Oak RIdge and has some interest in cars. He told me that the rotational, unsprung weight reduction figures are all over the map - many of them are absurd. He suggested that a more likely ratio was 1.6 to 1 between static and unsprung rotational weight. He said it was a lot more complicated than that, but that was a good starting estimate.

I could have gotten slightly lighter wheels, but I think you are getting into the area of diminishing returns, going too light makes for weaker wheels, and I do some track time. Of course, if you are a trust fund baby and want to go carbon fiber, that is another story.


201 Admiral Blue M7

hebegb

Great looking set of wheels. Went with the VX1s on mine. Probably not as light, but still a nice reduction. Love the way Forgeline matches the Carbon Flash finish from GM. Really sets the car off as compared to the OEM black finish. Enjoy!

Maxpowers

Nice wheels and writeup.

NineVettes

Thanks, guys - easy to see the quality of these wheels, especially compared to the stock wheels. The vibrations were so annoying that I just stopped driving the car, and of course had to cancel out on any more track outings due to safety concerns.

Did not have a lot of time to spend driving the car before starting prep for a business trip, but I can definitely feel a difference at some speed, besides the elimination of the vibrations from stock crap wheels. Thirty lbs. reduction of unsprung, rotational weight is significant, and I could feel some differences on the few curvy roads I did a bit of testing on. Cant wait to get to the track. I am sure my track experiences have made me more sensitive to handling differences, but if someone is having problems with the stockers, I would advocate doing this in a New York minute if they plan to keep the car for a while - as I am.

Last and best of the FE manual Z06's - worth keeping to me. Ti Evo exhaust (another 30 lbs gone) expected to be installed in about 10 days if all goes well. Goals are to get weight down into the mid 3,400 lb range and try for about 600 rear wheel without blowing the warranty. Dyno test earlier with only BMS filter and Mamo PTB put me at 589. We will see.

23/C8Z

Nice thread man. Great job.

What the wheels run you?

NineVettes

Thanks. I bought the wheels from a friend. Over the years I have made a number of friends who I tracked with, and/or belonged to a Corvette club with. One of them has more money than "planning sense" sometimes and he hops around between cars quite a bit. In this case, he ordered the wheels from somewhere several months ago for his C7, was going to keep the car until the C8 Z06 came out. Then he got the hots for the new, recently announced Ford Shelby GT500, sold his C7 and became one of the first to order a GT500. So, the wheels were never mounted and once he decides to move off in another direction, the wheels became just an item he wanted to get rid of. So we made a very nice and quick deal!

So we were all happy. If not for that, I would have ordered a set from a Forum wheel vendor - the one who has "liked" these posts....

CW4L

Welcome to the Team and love the wheels cannot wait to see more pics. I run the VX1 on my C7R and same feelings why I love all the pics. Enjoy em and thanks for the write up, if you ever need anything just hollar!


Im staying Tuned for more pics, lol...

ssmith512

Clearly you never took a course in Statics or Dynamics.

Less does not always equate to weaker.

Road machine

Nope just material science. Stress analysis, and physics. So please tell me how you can cut the weight of a wheel by 30% and make it stronger, using the same material. Feel free to use statistics and Dynamics to prove your point.

NineVettes

I have been receiving some PMs about my experience with the new much lighter wheels, and I thought that in the interests of time, would reply here. I have been doing some track time with cars starting back with my late 80's C4 Vette which had 240 h/p. I remember back then we thought those cars were fairly quick. Also, I still work for a Federal enforcement agency under DOJ, and at times in the past, I was able to attend one of their training sessions at Summit Point Raceway in West Va. I even remember one session years ago, where they had a sharpshooter named "Angel" who would randomly shoot a tire out to make things interesting while we were doing or training exercises. So slowly, over a period of time, I acquired some modest abilities to "feel" what the car I was driving was doing. Of course the real pros have an uncanny ability to feel these things, far beyond what I can do.

And in my brief curvy rod tests (lots of curvy 2 lane roads not far from me here in North Central Fl) I could definitely feel improvements. So glad to not be living in grid-lock Northern Va anymore. Only get up there now as required for the job.

Of course my Z06 will never be as nimble as a Miata, but the un-sprung 30 lb. weight reduction, in conjunction with other weight reduction steps will make her a bit less of a fat lady! And that is good...