Mostly does not have anything to do with weight bias. The weight has all to do with suspension and engine performance around Un-Sprung Weight.
Depends what you are looking for in ride quality and performance. Un-sprung weight is a MAJOR factor in in performance and ride quality. Every pound counts in either direction. The 22 lbs difference on all four corners is HUGE. Higher weight, less performance, more compliant. Lower weight, higher performance, less compliant ride.
If you combine a LWFW (light weight flywheel) and light weight wheels, you have a completely different, higher performing car.

Hope this helps.....

Best,

Eric

 

Higher performance as measured by what tests?

 

You asked

Unsprung Weight - Part 1

By: Eric Albert

Introduction

Every car built today has some type of suspension on it. Whether it's a double-wishbone or a MacPherson Strut design, we, as tuners, need to know a little more about suspension that just 'dropping' the chassis down a little bit. Let's take a deeper look at what exactly the job of your car's suspension is.

Suspension on the Clock

So we all know that suspension works. It works for you, but it never gets paid. In the same way as you and I work, we probably have different jobs. Suspension is no different. There are a few different ways your suspension works.

The main job of your suspension is to suspend your car above the road. If that was the only reason for the existence of springs and shocks though, why don’t we just solidly mount the car to the axles? “That’s obvious!” you say. Of course, you’d have a lot of trouble with bumps and corners with a solid suspension. This is because a suspension is supposed to allow your wheels and tires to follow the road, irregularities and all, while the body of the vehicle travels smoothly. Turning things around, the suspension should also keep the wheels and tires in maximum contact with the road for the best performance (this is more important than ride for us driving enthusiasts). So, to continue, for a suspension to be effective, it must allow the wheels and tires to accelerate and decelerate rapidly up and down while not allowing them to make excess motions (example - axle hop). The springs prevent the wheel assembly from traveling too far, while the dampers prevent oscillation by the spring.

Sprung Weight

Sprung weight is the weight supported by the springs. For example: the vehicle's body, frame, motor, transmission, interior, fuel, and passengers would be sprung weight. A simple concept to grasp. Basically, the sprung weight of the car is the car's mass as seen to the suspension components.

Unsprung Weight

This is one of the most critical factors affecting a vehicle's road holding ability. Unsprung weight is that portion of a vehicle that is not supported by the suspension (i.e. wheels, tires and brakes) and therefore is the most susceptible to road shock and cornering forces. By reducing unsprung weight, alloy wheels provide more precise steering input and improved "turning in" characteristics. So what. SO WHAT!? This is a key concept that many people overlook. We have been telling you for a long time now to get light weight wheels and tires. Here's how it all comes together.

Every time you hit a bump, the wheel assembly is accelerated upwards, decelerates to a stop, then accelerates downward till it reaches equilibrium. If the wheel can’t accelerate fast enough, shock is transmitted to the body, which may upset the balance of the car. A s an example think of small, sharp edged speed bumps versus those gigantic, but wide, monsters in some lots. The sharp edged ones are much more annoying to traverse, aren’t they? That’s because they require the suspension to accelerate more rapidly. Now imagine going over some stutter bumps in a corner. You’ll have a very rapid series of accelerations and decelerations. If the wheel is lighter, it will accelerate upwards and downwards faster (a=F/m). This means it will follow the road better and, even more importantly, it will allow the suspension to work better. The shock and spring will have to control less unsprung weight/mass, which means they can stop and start the motion of the assembly easier and at a rapid pace.

Why Reduce Unspring Wieght?

Reducing unsprung weight minimizes the load placed on controlling the motion of the wheels and tires. This means that suspension springs and shock absorbers will have a greater reserve capacity to control body motion -- just as they were intended to! The result is better handling, which we, as tuners, are all after.

Unsprung Weight - Part 2

By: Eric Albert

Introduction

In the first part of this series, we took a look at the effects of high unsprung weight on suspension and handeling. In this part, we will look at rotating mass. Be careful not to confuse unsprung mass with rotating mass. Reducing both is good, but they are not the same. Let's take a look.

Rotational Inertia (or Momentum)

Rotational inertia is a concept a bit more difficult to deal with than unsprung weight. Inertia can be thought of as why a car wants to keep rolling once moving, or remain in place once stopped (unless you forget to set the parking brake on that hill). I believe the terms momentum and inertia are interchangeable. The term “flywheel effect” also refers to these concepts. In a car, there are a number of rotating masses which require energy to accelerate. Up front, ignoring the internal engine components like the crankshaft, we have to worry about the flywheel, clutch assembly, gears, axles, brake rotors and wheel/tire. Out back its a little simpler (for FWD) with just the brakes and wheel/tire contributing most of the mass.

The more mass an object has, the more energy it takes to accelerate it. To accelerate a rolling object such as a wheel, you must both accelerate its mass plus overcome its rotational inertia. As for braking, you must overcome its rotational inertia plus decelerate its mass. By reducing the weight of the vehicle's rotational mass, lightweight wheels provide more responsive acceleration and braking.

Before continuing with our informal analysis here, I want to point out something very important about rotational inertia. We’ve all seen the ice skating move where the skater starts spinning. She pulls her arms in and speeds up, then extends them again and slows down. Why is this? Well, the further a mass is from the center of rotation, the faster it must travel for a given angular speed (how many degrees of an arc it traverses per time unit). The faster anything moves, the more energy it has, so when the arms are pulled in, conservation of energy says that the rotation rate must increase due to equal energy being applied to the same mass over a smaller diameter. Applying this to wheels and tires, which have most of their mass spread as far as possible from the rotation center, I think you’ll agree that it naturally takes more energy to accelerate them. Example: Take a two identical masses, but one is a solid disk of diameter D, the other is a ring of diameter 2D. The ring will require more force to accelerate it (in a rotational manner). Therefore a heavier rim with a smaller diameter could have less rotational mass than a lighter rim of a larger size, and accelerate faster with the same force applied.

The effect of rotating mass can be calculated using Moment of Inertia (MOI). MoI is related to not only the mass of the rotating object, but the distribution of that mass around the rotational center. The further from the center, the higher the MoI. The higher the MoI, the more torque required to accelerate the object. The higher the acceleration, the higher the torque required.

Because of this, the weight of rotating mass such as wheels and tires on a car have a bigger effect on acceleration than static weight such as on the chassis on a car. When purchasing new wheels and tires for a performance car, it can be useful to compare the effects of different wheel and tire combinations. This is especially true when considering upgrading to larger wheels or tires on a car.

The use of light-weight alloys in wheels reduces rotational mass. This means that less energy will be required to accelerate the wheel. Given that each pound of rotational mass lost provides an equivalent performance gain as a 10 pound reduction in vehicle weight, the benefits of light alloy wheels on vehicle performance cannot be overlooked.
For example:
A reduction in the weight of the rim/tire assembly of 5lbs x 4 (all around the car) is equivalent to a 200lb weight reduction in vehicle weight (thats worth 0.200 in the 1/4 mile)

So What's the Point?

The point of this discussion is as follows: There is a great deal of rotational mass to deal with in a car and tires and wheels may only make up half of it. Estimates for weight (o.k. for comparison since they’re all in the same gravity field, therefore the mass would be a similar ratio)
Front: Rear:
Wheel/tire: 30-35 lbs each 30-35 lbs each
Flywheel: 15-20 lbs
Clutch: 15 lbs
Halfshafts: 7-10 lbs each
Gears: 5-7 lbs
Rotors: 3-5 lbs 3-5 lbs
Misc: 3-5 lbs 3-5 lbs
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Total: 115-148 lbs 76-90 lbs

So a couple pounds here and there on wheels and tires will make a difference, but that difference is magnified because that weight is placed further from the axis of rotation than any other mentioned (remember the ice skater). All these masses must be accelerated, so any reduction is a good thing. Now you know why we always say don't get those 18" rims for your civic. Not only are the heavier, they have a larger overall diameter. Even with lower profile tires, most plus sizing leaves us with a slightly larger wheel.
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