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Lightweight Tires???

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NewTurboTuner

15+ Year Contributor
535
21
Jul 21, 2006
Rslv, Arkansas
You know what's pissing me off

I'm trying to find tire weights, and tire companys don't seems to want to give'em up easy?

Its really stupid when a company makes/sells a race tire and they don't give out weight specs:mad:

The exact same with CF hoods and other CF lightweight parts ....The whole freaking idea is to save weight, but the stupid dumbazz manufactures don't post weight specs!!!!:mad:
Its pissin me off!!! :mad: I wanna know weights DAM IT!!!

Can someone give me any help PLEASE?

Has anyone weighed a Nitto 555R?
I'd like to see numbers in pounds so I can compare these with other tires.
(when or if I find weights for other tires):rolleyes:

Does anyone have any good suggestions for a lightweight tire?
I'm pretty much looking for the lightest tires I can find that is street legal.

Any info will be appreciated! :cool:
Thanks!!
 
Need size.

I know Toyo, Falkens, and Bridgestone have tire weights listed. I'll give you that I didn't find any on Nittos page.

The weight vs grip is not a debate. Get a tire that performs well that is within budget. Weight is less of a concern than grip since tires accelerate, brake, and turn the car.
 
I know some of the manufacturers have them listed, such as Kumho, Falken, Hercules, etc. I know this because I was like WTF when I found out my Hercules G5000Z 225/40/18 tires weighed in at over 28 lbs and most others for that size come in around 22-23. Guess their main ingrediant in their tires is lead :D , wonder if I'll notice any difference next spring when the new rubber goes on. Have been told 1 lb of rotational mass is equal to 7lbs of weight, not sure how accurate that is though. Like asian312 said, most tires are pretty comparable as far as weight goes (most, not all ;) ) so go with the ones that offer the best traction for your price range.
 
16's and 17's

225/50/16, or 225/45/17 .....Something like that.

I don't need to know the exact weights. Give or take 2-3 pounds would be OK.

I just don't wanna end up with tires that weigh 25lbs a piece, when I could have bought some that weigh 18-19lbs each. ...thats 20lbs difference in unsprung weight and I want all the weight loss I can get.

Traction vs. weight is a bit of a debate
~Tires with the lightest weight, will free up, and give you the most HP.
But without good traction, you cannot get that extra HP to the ground.
~Tires with the best traction would insure you get all of your HP to the ground. But if the tires are heavy, they'll use up and take away HP. Then you have less HP to put to the ground.

...So you can see, there is a relationship between the two. I guess it all depends on how far someone wants to take it. Most people probably wouldt care but I do. I've got AWD and traction is not as much of an issue for me ....so I'm looking for lighter tires to free up more HP:D

I'll check out those sites you mentioned.
Thanks:thumb:
 
daren_p said:
I was like WTF when I found out my Hercules G5000Z 225/40/18 tires weighed in at over 28 lbs and most others for that size come in around 22-23. Guess their main ingredient in their tires is lead :D


Hahahaha ROFL
Thats exactly what I'm freakin talking about! hahaha! They should all weight about the same but they DONT :beatentodeath: I've been there before too!

I'm sure you will feel a difference if you got lighter tires!
You could easily remove 20-25lbs by switching tires.

I don't know if every 1lb of sprung weight, is equal to 7lbs unsprung???
I bet it's atleast 3.

....I'll do some research and let you all know what I find.


Thanks
 
well that was a waist of a hour....:rolleyes:


The numbers I saw were that 1lb of unsprung weight equals 4,7,11lbs of sprung weight.
I didnt find any solid info that says X lbs of unsprung weight = Y lbs of sprung weight.


It seems like the HP increase per lb of unsprung weight... will depend on the ratio between the vehicles sprung & unsprung weight? ...something like that anyway?


If anyone has any idea what the formula is.... let me know

THANKS!
 
I didn't read your post thus far very closely, mainly cause I'm about to pass out .. but have you looked at tirerack.com as I was able to determine the weight of my tires in their specs section. I would imagine it would be the same for tires you are researching. Note, I did however manage to do a search for tirerack so I don't think it's been mentioned thus far.

Here's the link to my 245/40ZR17 Kumho ECSTA SPT tires:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp?make=Kumho&model=ECSTA+SPT&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes&partnum=44YR7KU31&tirePageLocQty=%26partnum%3D44YR7KU31

Hope this helps.
 
I get where your going with the traction/less power put to the ground vs more power put to the ground vs less traction but for me obviously being fwd, traction is the route that would be best for me. I guess awd might be abit of a toss up. Most of the time from what I have seen, most manufacturers are with in a couple pounds of each other, my current tires seem to be the exception, possibly a typo as over 5 lbs per tire seems like quite abit. Might get the old weigh scale out when I do the swap in the spring.

As for the loss of power even though this could equal 30-50+ lbs (rotational weight saved from the drive wheels + saved mass on the back, depending on the factor) saved in my situation, I wonder how noticeable this would actually be in real life? I know it should make a difference but will it even be great enough for the butt dyno to feel? You have to remember that my car (& looks like you would have similar numbers) are mid 300 hp cars so overall the gain won't be all that noticeable. Now on the other hand if you were driving a 115hp civic, I would think you would defently notice a 30-50 lb weight reduction.

Back years ago I had a Cavalier Z24 with some mods, that maybe made 160 hp. Now I could defently tell when I switched from the factory 14" rims (weighed basically nothing)with winter tires to my 17" rims with wider summer tires. It wasn't a huge difference but it was defently noticeable but the difference in those setups was probably 20-25 lbs per rim/tire & a much less hp car.

Personally I still wouldn't kill myself trying to find the lightest tire, just make sure its in the ball park (not like the lead weights I currently have on) with all the competitors & then go for the one with the amount of grip your wallet can afford.
 
Yup I hear you Daren. Good point about the lighter cars
I not a big deal by its self, but every little bit counts, And before you know, it adds up to something that matters. I figure... If I have to spend (and I NEED new tires now) money on new tires, then I might as well get the best tire I can. I don't want to end up with a awesome gripping tire, that's made of lead :D
 
I just got my new set of Kumho MX's today, they look like they will be a huge improvement in the grip department (& the reviews would agree). I got the weigh scale out and for the 225/40/18 size they come in at ~21.5 lbs. Think they were listed at 22 lbs on their website. I guess now I have to wait till the spring to see if my current tires are really as heavy as their listed at.
 
The stickier tire will always give you better results. Stick with a major manufacturer of performance tires and you can be sure that the tire's weights will be within the norm for that tire size.

Honestly most carbon fiber parts nowadays are made for looks rather than weight. I could've made my hood about 10lbs lighter than what VIS made it without the hinges, different construction, and no hood latch. But in the end more of these get sold to people who want to use them on their daily driver than their racecar.

As a wise man once said. If you want it done right do it yourself. Obviously for some things like tire's that's just not gonna work, so pick the grippiest tire in your price point and don't worry about unsprung weight. There is no direct mathematical formula for it especially in the case of a tire and wheel. I believe Dave Coleman tried to calculate out the effects of rotational enertia of the average rim and in the end he was forced to admit that without serious computer modeling and computation it was nearly impossible to find. My guess is that there are alot of other things you could lighten before worrying about how much your tires weigh.
 
Do high performance tires list the PLY? Go with the tire with the least amount of plys(layers). Just don't run over anything going 110 MPH. A heaver tire does tend to be more durable.
 
dwdsm said:
Do high performance tires list the PLY? Go with the tire with the least amount of plys(layers). Just don't run over anything going 110 MPH. A heaver tire does tend to be more durable.

Please don't interfere with my attempts to raise the signal-to-noise ratio of this site. Thanks.

- Charles Darwin
 
Measuring the effect of unsprung weight is not as simple as x=y. The further from the center of rotation the weight is the more effect it has on how much it act on the force trying to turn in. For example adding a 25 Lb weight to the hub of your wheel then dynoing would show a lot less hp loss then adding the same amount of weight to the out side of the wheel. Hope that makes some kind of sense to you. It would be like removing 10lbs from your flywheel would make more of a difference on acceleration then 10Lbs form the driveshaft because of its smaller diameter.
 
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