ringo951

I have 17" wheels currently and am considering upgrading the wheels to forged. I am wanting to hear from people that have or have had 18" wheels on their cars. What are your opinions on these, are you happy with 18's or would you go back to smaller wheels if you were changing them. What do you like and/or dislike about them. What did you have to do to make them work on your car.

Some other info to consider in my question:

I am considering upgrading and lowering my suspension about an 1". One of the main considerations to going to 18's is the tire selection, there are many more options for 18's versus 17's.

Please include your tire and wheel sizes.

bloodraven

I haven't had them, but from what I have heard, 18 inch rims are the worst idea aside from burnouts..the mess with your handling, they can throw off your supsension, and they feel rougher...stick with the 17's

tifosiman

I don't have 18's. However, I might add to this conversation that for 17" wheels and larger, you need to upgrade the caster blocks to the 968 units.

xsboost90

going from heavy 17's to somewhat lighter 18's, the only difference i noticed was

1- handles alittle tighter on the road-could be the tires

2-rides somewhat stiffer/harder due to shorter sidewalls

now my car is slammed, w/ alittle camber for autox anyways i have no rubbing problems.

mgmarsh39

18x8 and 18x11 BBS porsche 996 TT 295 30 18 225 40 18

no rubbing and no lack in performance other than heavy breaking. Just gotta be careful where you drive so that you dont cause the wheel to go to far up and hit.

Handeling is wonderful and power is the same. These things dont weigh much more than my old cookie cutters.

Oddjob

Ive run 8 & 10x18 and 8.5 & 10x18" wheels with 245/35 and 285/30 tires. Thats a lot of wheel and tire and I do it for the track.

I am thinking about using a set for street wheels and putting some slightly smaller tires on them, 225 or 235 front and 265 rear.

The problem with 18s, there is no sidewall flex in the tires and the wheel will take any hard bump or pot hole on the street. This makes for a rougher ride than 16s or 17s, but also the cheap 18" wheels are very prone to bending rims. I also saw a set of RH 18" wheels bend the the wheel center last wknd. So be prepared to spend some money on good strong quality wheels upfront, or spend it later replacing bent rim halves. Any of the factory Porsche wheels are good (the aftermarket copies are not), along with many of the pro race wheels: BBS, Fikse, HRE, Speedline, Kenesis, Forgeline, Jungblood, etc - but youre going to be paying nearly $800-1000 per wheel for some of those brands.

Matt H

Testing was done on 16/17/18/19" wheels that showed that the ride quality does deteriorate but not to the extent people tend to make it sound. From a 16 to an 18 (same tire but different sizes, duh) there was almost no difference, on the 19 it was "noticable." The car tested was a BMW M3.

Any good 17" tire will have the same characterstics as its 18" counterpart. Your reasoning is sound, there are a lot more 18" sizes available now.
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nickhance

I'm running 18's on my car. The only problem I have is a rubbing issue when I load up the front of the car. The wheels are my favorite wheels available for any car and they look so good, that I've adapted my driving style until I can fix them (probably next week).

It is a little more rough with the 18's, but I would recommend them.

daniel951

i have my 18's and i love them for the looks and get alot of compliments from people around town but the downfall is they are heavy and u can tell a difference when i throw on the stock ones. If you plan on just looks go for it but performance wise keep a stock set and a spare.
my rims are voxx froza 18x9 all around with 235's in the front and 265's in rear

Matt H

This comes up all the time. Even Michael Andretti has said that a professional race driver would not notice a few pounds per wheel and the average person would not notice 30+ pounds per wheel. The "feel" is generally from the increase in scrub radius.
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bjzorn

I run 8x18 in the front and 10x18 in the rear with 225/35zr18 and 265/30zr18 in the rear. they are BBS LM relpicas and I really like them. they due ride a little rougher(Mind you I have koni ajds on the car too set almost right to stiff.) but I didn't notice any downfalls in accelration I did notice a gain in cornering though. I say go for it.

Brandon

tifosiman

I respect your opinion, and agree with you 99.9% of the time, but I gotta tell you, I can tell the difference on my N/A between the heavy 17" C2 replicas and the 16" 951 Fuchs (with the appropriate sized tires on each).

I could see the scrub radius statement being valid, but even in a straight line accell from a dead stop, I can tell the difference. Maybe it is because I am trying to extract every bit I can from the measly 143 Hp, but I can definetly feel it. Maybe a test with the G-Tech is in order here, although the results probably wouldn't be valid.

(BTW, I used to have a pro drivers license, so maybe that makes me more able to notice the difference than an average driver? There is more than a couple pounds difference per wheel in the comparison I spoke about above.)

xsboost90

no tifo i think your right. When i had my heavy 17's, i would take them off and put on the phone dials i could tell a huge difference, and this was before i had the low profile slicks. The 17's felt great on the road but in comparison, esp. on the track, the car felt real heavy and didnt respond as well to driver input in a corner. Also accelleration was weaker. W/ my 18's vs. the 17's, i felt an increase in power and handling responsivness, but these wheels are light. I think any heavy wheel like replicas will kill power and handling no matter what the size. Not all 18's are made the same!

Matt H

On numerous tests they have shown that straight line performance is minimally changed at best. One could interpret the data as insignificant. I am lucky enough to have access to test data like that, we do it all the time (we actually have a test center with 4 track that I occasionally get to spend some time at).

The idea that you want the lightest wheel possible is great for a track setting, for a car that only sees the street we all know that is not ideal. I can get you a set of Mg wheels if you like but you wont like it when they break in half going over the RR tracks. Light wheels are a compromise.

Further, what 99% of people on earth dont know is that wheels have specific load ratings, just like tires. In general, a lighter wheel will have a lower load carrying capacity, which is fine on a 2500lb race car and not as fine on a 3200lb street car.

What kills power is SOTP or the notoriously incorrect "butt dyno" and what kills handling is the offset and centerline of the wheels, the increase scrub radius, and the often much grippier larger tires. It is rare that people test the same tires back to back. Most people are going not only bigger but wider, etc.

Empirical testing shows that my statements are true. Now, not saying that I wouldnt prefer to have a 15 pound wheel to a 40 pound wheel but I am saying that 99% of people wouldnt know the difference between 28-22lbs or even 28-18lbs. Just look at most 944s, there are so many other things wrong with them losing .1 seconds 0-100 is really about the last thing in order of importance
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tifosiman

Ah, no..................I know all about 100% Mg wheels. Not on my list of wants, for certain. Even for Race-Only wheels, they are too brittle, IMHO, unless one has a limitless budget or factory support (ala the Mg Phones that came on the 951 Cup cars).



Agreed. And most of the larger wheels we are talking about are made for heavier cars, so they are almost a bit of overkill IMHO. You would never catch me putting 20" Cayenne wheels on my car.

Agreed. That's why I stated that the test with my G-Tech could be construed as invalid, due to the different brand of tires (MPS's on the 17's verses SP8000's on the 16's). But the tire widths are very close on the two. Fronts are 225/50X16 verses 225/45X17, and rears are 245/45X16 verses 255/40X17 (16X8 verses 17X8, 16X9 verses 17X9). So the contact patches are almost identical, heights are almost identical.

I understand the emperical testing. But there is a reason that most autox guys tend to run the lightest wheels and tires they can find that fit over their calipers, and that is due to the constant accelleration out of the corners during the event. In a sport where the winning margin could be .001 seconds, that "insignificant" amount could be "significant" due to a different person interpreting the test data.

No argument there.

I just wanted to point out that I can tell the difference in light wheels verses heavy wheels. I guess I'm just the Rain Man of Wheel Weights, eh?