Red Bar0n

Anyone know what the stock 16'' rims weigh on the '04 WRX?

Thanks

PS vote in my pole in the suggestions area of I-Club

kravdra

The 02-03 wrx wheels weigh 16.5 lbs. I believe they're the same (they changed the rims for 05 right?)

Red Bar0n

many thanks for the info.

When I get new rims I want to consider rims that are lighter than stock to help reduce weight.

kravdra

yup, I agree, however, lighter doesn't necessarily mean that it will appear lighter to your car. By lightening the wheel/tire combo you reduce unsprung weight for sure, but since the weight is moved farther from the center of the wheel the wider you go, you may not be reducing rotational mass. I mean, if you got a 16" wheel that weighed 15 pounds and a 17" wheel that weighed 15 pounds the rotational mass would increase. Just thought I should point that out, going lighter is still a good goal, (if your staying same size, forget everything I've said )

What wheels are you looking at? or did you just start?

Good Luck!

WRX2ndregime

iTrader: (2)

depending on where you live lighter rims aren't going to be better even if they are forged. If you have ****ty roads with potholes, and uneven pavement. Like I have to deal with in Pennsylvannia, then those extreamly light weight rims would crack and bend all the time. I want Advan's but I know I'll problaby end up bending or cracking them because I drive on all kinds of back roads. Lighter rims are great if you don't have to deal with that,

Red Bar0n

Hmmm... I never really thought of it that way. The 17" inch rims have more area for your axels to spin those 15 pounds around. Like when I take a turn or off ramp and my speed is a little faster than a car in front of me. If I can avoid using my brakes by taking the turn wider to make my car in essence travel the outside of the curve (a longer turn), I will to avoid brake wear.

I wonder what the ratio is to get equal or less weight if you bump up from 16" to 17" rim?

Hypothetical, for example (taking into consideration your concept):
If you have a 16" rim that weighs 15 pounds, Could you lets say get a 17" rim that weighed 14 pounds and not increase the ROTATIONAL MASS or lower it. Or a 17" rim that weighed 13 pounds to decrease R.M.?

To answer your question, I wanted the info as a point of reference While I checked out different 17" rims. I thought the tire rack had some nice choices.

Red Bar0n

Funny you should mention, When I went to school in Maryland you could always tell when you crossed over the MD / PA line when the roads went to pot.

Thanks for the heads up. I now live in New Hampshire and there are back / dirt roads I go on.

Are you running the stocks 16"s? If not what are you using? Would regular weight 17"s be an issue for those back roads?

I used to live close to Philly (Go Eagles). But I also like the Steelers as well.
Wouldn't it be cool to see those two teams in the superbowl (The Pennsy Royale Baby!)

WRX2ndregime

iTrader: (2)

I'm running stock right now, I'll probalby get the new rota boosts, I like the way they look. I want 17s for the handleing benefits. But i'd crap in my draw's if I cracked an advan. My friend has 4 thousand dollar custom HRE's on his S4 and he doesn't like driving it anywhere becasue the roads suck. So I want bigger rims for handleing but If you don't live in a state with excellent roads don't get bling bling rims. I think Rota's would hold up, but I'd be a lot less pissed if I busted a 100 dollar rota then a 700 dollar Advan. Cast means they are poured into a mold, so usually cast rims have a lot of imperfections and sometime hairline fractures in the rim, so they are more susseptable to cracking. Forged is cut from a solid block of metal. But basically as a rull of thumbs any light weight rim will bend or crack if you hit a pot hole going really fast, especially cheap ones. The heavier a rim is the more of a pounding it can take.

And a Philly/ Pitt superbowl would probably never happen. Pa teams are classic choke artists. Philly is looking so good this year and they will probalby get cut down in the NFC champ game for the 4th year in a row.

kravdra

I kno it wasn't directed at me, but take a look at OZ Superleggera's. I have them on my car, and although I havent taken it offroad (I use my 15" crappy stockers for that) and from what I've heard they're really strong (and they seem it too). The roads around me are also hella nice. But they're something like a pound lighter than stock wrx wheel/tire combo and look great IMO. But the smaller wheel you go it is less likely to damage for 2 reasons. 1 is that smaller is inherently stronger for the same weight (and same design) because the spokes are shorter and the tighter circle is harder to deform, plus there'd be more material per size. Furthermore, by having more tire between the rim and the road, the force that reaches the rim from the road is reduced. Good Luck

yaggi

I know this is a super old thread, but I was searching for the weight of stock 04 WRX rims and came across it. Just to clarify what everyone was saying quantitatively.................the moment of inertia for an object such as a rim is proportional to the mass multiplied by the radius^2. So, if you have two different size rims that are equal in weight, the larger sized one will have a larger moment of inertia and thus require more energy to get it moving or get it stopped. Hoped this helped a little.

yzercyber

Yup. Rims larger in diameter than the stock 16" than are going to slow you down, unless they are extremely light. How light? I don't know. The 17X7.5 SSR Competitions I put on my WRX Sedan slow me down slightly. They weigh in at 12.8 lbs apiece! Total reduction of unsprung weight on my WRX was 18 lbs.

The improvement in cornering and handling is so good however, that I wouldn't think of going back to the stock wheels. The SSR Comps are semi-solid forged: light and strong. I've done my fair share of nasty county roads and have had no rim damage. Tire rack has a variety of SSRs available. They will give you light weight and most of the strength of a traditional forged wheel at considerably lower cost.
Some folks put 17-19" 18 pounder+ rims on their WRX but as far as I can figure it's done for the sake of appearance.

Red Bar0n

Thanks for the info.

yzercyber

Good luck on the wheel choice. I driving good freeway most of the time and poorly-maintained pavement on the weekends. If I were driving a lot of dirt, gravel and pothole-ridden roads on a regular basis, I'd go to a 10-20mm wider-than-stock 16" SSR Comp or Comp GT.

Toiletbrush

So true! Because of the lousy roads here, my Advan RG's are now my winter rims. One big pothole is all it takes.