I've been looking at many sites and pictures of Spoon S2k race cars, and all of them have 17" wheels (or larger). Why don't any of them use the black 16" Spoon wheels? Have they given up on the 16" wheel and moved on to bigger and better wheels?

 

2 reasons:

1.stiffer sidewall
2.bigger wheel is required to clear a big brake kit.

I may be wrong though.

 

The Super Taikyu cars used to run 16" Work wheels. They're not allowed any brake changes aside from pads and ducting, so they're running stock brakes. The reason for the change to 17" wheels in the past couple of years is wider wheel availability. Most of the teams are now running some sort of 17x9 wheel. They used to run 16x7F/16x8R Work Emotion CRs or even longer ago, Work RSZ-Rs.

 

So is it safe to say that the cars are getting around the track faster now with the larger wheels? Due to better handling and larger brakes?

 

They don't run larger brakes (see previous post..."stock brakes"). They run wider wheels and tires and considering they're running slicks, they have a lot of grip. Their suspension is set up to run same width (no stagger) front and rear. Wider tires means more grip. Keep in mind, tho those ST cars run mostly stock engines, they have spot welded chassis and a slew of other "race" only mods.

 

Ok, so the extra grip and better handling characteristics of a low profile tire that you get with larger (and heaver) wheels, will out perform the lighter (less rotational weight) wheels on the race track. This must be true or they would have continued to use the 16" wheels, especially since larger brakes are not utilized.

So are the Spoon wheels only useful in competitions where you are restricted to stock size?

 

regulations man, regulations!