After seeing a few different sets of wheels on the IVers, I’m not that enthused about their design. There have been a lot of good (and bad) looking wheels on past Corvettes. What style would you like to see on the MEs so they compliment the this new revolutionary design? What were your past favorites on previous Vettes?

Feel free to post pics of what you’d like to see!

 

I would think the design should be a symetrical design and not a asymetrical design where all four wheel are a seperate or different wheel. The ZR1 wheels are asymetrical, hence when or if you rotate the wheel from driver side to passenger side they are a different look.

 

I like a simple non-directional wheel. The current GS wheel is nice IMO.

 

I'm not loving the wheel design I see on the mules. My personal favorite is the current C7 Z51 wheel.

 

 

what a great picture. stylish!!!

 

Love the pic Shaka! Would love to see if someone could photoshop older style wheels on the pics of the mules. Would be interesting to see if some of the old school looks would go well with the new design.

 

I love the old-school design too, but that really only works well on old-school high profile tires, and you lose a lot of performance trying to run those on today's high performance cars with very low profile tires. The fond memories of many of us aside, yesteryear's high performance cars and period tires didn't perform nearly as well as almost anything today.

 

I don't like the directional wheels, especially the way GM does it. GM just uses the same wheel for the right as they do the left, so it is rotating the wrong direction on one side of the car. That's just lame, and cheap looking.

 

I like the snowflake-style wheels we've seen on the test mules, the other wheels on test mules are too basic looking IMO.

 

I like the look of the smaller C8 wheels(star)just painted silver.
If I had my way,I’d like to see a P02 ,C3 style wheel covers being offered....not holding my breath ...

 

You think the point of the wheels is to look different side to side? Really? GM made a directional wheel and was just too cheap to make proper side-specific wheels. Even my '95 Ford Probe GT had proper side specific whees as did C4s and Porsche Turbos etc.

I would love to see an actual directional wheel with proper side-specific left and right wheels, but it won't happen.

I am not in love with any of the wheels on any of the mules.

 

The front of that car is WAY too big ! Proportions are off. It will never fly !

 

You didn't understand my post. That is my gripe. There should be 4 location specific wheels if they have asymetrical or fan Impeller style directional wheels. Knowing that the ZORA has 19" front wheels and 20" rear wheels, there should be left and right wheels of both 19 and 20 inch sizes. The Ferrari 812 Superfast has all four location specific wheels, though the car costs half a million bucks. The 911 has no directional wheels for that reason. I even wrote a post on "Ask Tadge" about this and he sort of dodged the question. See below.




Engine Cavity and Wheel Cavity Air ManagementThe answer thread is here.
Quote:skank asked:
I've read and observed with great interest the air management advancements of the new ZR1. Could you explain the air flow paths through the new front fascia and how they are designed and engineered to move air through those internal locations. Knowing that you have already developed brake ducts to direct air to the brake discs, would directional(asymmetrical) fan style wheels help in the air flow path? I also noticed that the new ZR1 wheels are asymmetrical and therefore look different from driver side to passenger side. Would four location specific wheels be required to optimize the aero through the wheel cavity area or is it not worth the extra cost to the ZR1 budget?


Quote:Tadge answered:
The full answer to this question is worthy of an SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) technical paper. The ZR1 has significantly improved airflow through the fascia to feed the additional radiators. You can tell with just a glance that there is more open area on the front of a ZR1 than a Z06 or Grand Sport. We measure airflow at average track speeds for a full lap. Compared to Z06, airflow through all radiators is increased by 41% by this measure. This is achieved by improving and optimizing the flow paths through the center as well as the outboard openings. We don't use this much open area for all cars since it creates unnecessary drag in cars that don't need that much cooling. If you look at the C7.R race car, you will see a relatively small opening located in the center of the front fascia.

Additional changes include: The horizontal cooler has been relocated from the position in Z06 to optimize flow performance and its venting is integrated to not disrupt the underwing aerodynamic performance. The center flowpath now features a bumper beam with 4 slot openings and ducting to maximize performance and the hood extractor performance is enhanced by including an extraction lip in the hood surface design. The outboard openings share air between the brake duct and outboard coolers. The baffles behind the opening are splitting the flows and are shaped to optimize the flow into both.

ZR1 track brake cooling has been enhanced by directing flow more efficiently to the control arm mounted hardware. The new front duct actually splits air in two directions. The upper path of the duct feeds air to the control arm deflector then to the knuckle deflector and onto the rotor. The lower path of the duct feeds air into the control arm mounted “airbox” and then up another duct on to the rotor. The airbox is also fed by under vehicle airflow with an enhanced underwing. The control arm mounted brake cooling hardware has evolved from the 2014 Z51 cooling kit (which included lower control arm and knuckle deflectors) to the 2017 Z06 track cooling kit (which adds the airbox and attaching upper duct).

In addition to the enhanced brake cooling, the ZR1 features new Carbon Composite Matrix (CCM) front brake rotors that tolerate higher temperatures than before and new, upgraded pads at all 4 corners.

The pictures below illustrate the difference between current production ZR1 and Z06 track brake cooling set ups. The main difference is in the duct that takes air through the front fascia. As we learned how to improve the air management downstream of the fascia duct on the development of the ZR1, we actually pulled those pieces ahead and released them for the 2017 model year Z06.

ZR1 w/track front brake cooling package installed (black arrows indicate flow from front duct, purple arrows indicate flow from underbody)



Z06 w/track front brake cooling package installed (black arrows indicate flow from front duct, purple arrows indicate flow from underbody)




Relative to the part of the question on wheel design…. We have experimented with “impeller wheels” with foil-shaped spokes or other features to promote air flow over the brakes since at least the 4th generation Corvette. You are right that they would require separate tools for wheels on the left and right side of the car, but if they were effective, we would spend the money. The truth is that the air flow in the wheel openings is very turbulent, nothing like the smooth flow over an airplane wing. The forward part of the wheel opening is a low pressure area so airflow is inboard to outboard. At the rear, it is just the opposite. So which flow do you want to promote? It turns out, the best thing we can do is have wheels with large openings to let the flow go where it wants. Casting or forging airfoil shapes is not mass-efficient given the other structural needs of the wheel. As unsprung mass, we put enormous effort into light, stiff wheels that let the brakes breathe.[img]images/statusicon/user_offline.gif [img]images/buttons/report.gif

 

I've got a soft spot for the early knockoffs tbh. Always liked them. The rims on the test cars as a whole probably aren't production but whatever ones had the metal trim ring with the black wheel actually looked pretty good imo.

On the side to side thing, my wheels on my 84 are labeled per corner. So LF RF LR RR... Saw that stamped in the back and found it interesting. They are different widths front to rear.

 

I didn't like them at first but they are definitely growing on me.

 

I agree.... Nice composition.

 

Can't go wrong with some good old fashion OZ wheels.




For a more modern touch, go with Forgestars.

 

The current wheels on the C8 Mules look like straight up ***. Designed by Ray Charles and approved by Stevie Wonder.

If the final C8 is worthy in appearance for me, these are the wheels I would get on the higher end model in Arctic White (if available).

 

The Forgestars look good too.