can anyone here claim a noticable difference with a lighter wheel/tire setup than stock. I know its not going to be night and day but...

stock setup is pretty weight consious as it is im wondering if i could feel a difference loosing 4 lbs a rear wheel, worth the money looks aside?
I'd like to hear from people who have tried this.

 

i wanna do the same thing...i been looking at OZ racing rims that weigh around 14-15lbs front and 15-16lbs back. with some lightweight tires that weigh around 17-19 lbs. that should save around 20-30 pounds.

 

a lighter wheel/tire setup will mean less weight that is needed to be spun by the driveshaft/axles, meaning more power being transmitted to the road. a few pounds per wheel/tire is negligible i'm sure, but it would help contribute to making the car's 'handling' feel more nimble and accelerate quicker, relatively speaking.

 

I wouldn't say its something you necessarily feel like you would a significant base horsepower increase. I feel the difference with lighter wheels exiting corners and on the steering feel. It isn't like you accelerate thru gears faster or anything, but with initial power the car wants to jump more I have found. From a standstill I don't think its as noticable either since you already have the capability of exceeding your tires traction limit with heavier wheels, the lighter wheels are still restricted by your tire limits.

 

I definitely noticed an acceleration difference from stepping up to V2s coming from Ap1s. I immediately felt the extra weight.

 

The only downside (if that's what you want to call it) of lighter wheels would be that you won't roll as far in neutral as you would with heavier wheels because of a lower moment of inertia, but for that same reason you can get up to speed faster in lighter wheels. I don't know how big of a difference it would make though. I can't answer your question directly because I don't have lighter wheels, but it all makes sense theoretically. I plan on changing to a lighter wheel one day.

 

Less rotational mass will translate in to better handling, will be most noticeable in corners, also like others said rollback in neutral and most important the net inertia of the car will be smaller - which will translate in to better breaking, acceleration, and other handling characteristics.
In addition to that since the weight being shaved is rotational mass, also known as unsprung mass, the effects of reducing weight on the components of suspension including wheels/tires will be felt directly by steering wheel inputs.

 

I asked this question a little while back and the consensus was that he benefit was lukewarm at best. Sure, there is a difference, but it's small.

You could argue that every little bit helps, but while accumulating "every little bit", you're likely to drop a boatload of cash. Lightweight parts for a car that is already lightweight are going to be *expensive*.

Likewise, trying to add more naturally aspirated power to a car that is already so highly engineered and tuned is very expensive.

 

Since it says you have a 2003, you could consider going up to 17" wheels. From what I've heard that actually does make a slight difference around a track, and while you're at it, you can kill 2 birds with one stone and get 17" wheels that are slightly lighter than stock ones. They talk about wheel size in this video(around the middle of it)[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtdOU-yyZ_w [/media] It's not much of a difference in time though, but better than nothing I guess.

 

If you're on 16s, upsizing to 17s will give you lots of additional tire choices. Any reasonably priced wheel will be lighter than stock.