MS3....Lead Wheels???

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mazdaspeed32007

Member
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Mazdaspeed3
ok...so in another thread we were discussing the weight of each rim and wheel of the MS3. the conclusion of the thread determined that Mazda bonked on this one big time. what do you think were the reasons for such a heavy rim? if they were going for performance, why not use a 17 inch lighter weight rim? and so on.......
 
I don't know how much one wheel weighs, but one day I was pondering why they went with a ten spoke design as opposed to a five or six. The only think I came up with that satisfied me was to make it stronger for the type of people that dont watch out for potholes. Could be totally wrong though.
 
How is a 24lb rim heavy? If they went lighter the car would have cost more right of the bat.
 
Even with a light wheel setup, you are only going to lose 50lbs max.... not necessarily insignificant, as that is rotating mass, but you could get the same thing by keeping the car under half a tank...

I could care less... I would like to run a car with equal add-ons and only lighter wheels and see what the difference is on the track... I guarantee you won't notice...
 
Oh and BTW... Mazda did it for styling purposes in my opinion... if they wanted us to go faster, they wouldn't have had the throttle slap closed at 5800rpms... or dropped the boost in the lower gears..

They made a compromise, plain and simple.
 
Then there's the whole them keeping their own costs down. Costs a lot more to mass produce a lighter/more expensive wheel. They could have done it and passed the extra cost onto the customer but that would take them out of the price point they wanted to sell the car at.
 
BLACKMS3 said:
Yeah I almost got those with my $2000 nav option.......... LOL Yeah Right!!
Click to expand...

haha, that's ludacris man!

i think if the wheels didn't look so good, i might have a problem with them being so heavy.

that, and i don't have 1,300 for new wheels.
 
Bufalo said:
Plus, have you already forgotten that Mazda offers dealer-installed forged wheels as an upgrade?
Click to expand...

thats nice. im glad i was offered that option......fuckers. i found out about all the factory add ons when i bought the car, searched for performance parts, and car and drivers review came up with the info about it.

well, in my opinion a 50 lb wheel is def heavy. i dont see any way around thinking that it isnt. like i said in a previous thread if you bought an 11 lb 17 inch rim, threw tires on it....you could be looking at around 30 lbs a wheel. thats 80 lbs difference. if you couldnt tell the difference in the rotating mass of 80 lbs total even on the street nevermind the track youd have to be oblivious to your own vehicle. your acceleration and stopping would be greatly effected.

now im not sure about this but since its front wheel drive and the tranny has to only spin two wheels directly, does that mean the mass it has to spin would only be 100 lbs or would you factor all 4 wheels and say its rotating 200 lbs?
 
also...i read somewhere that each 2.x lbs (i think it was 2.17 lbs) of rotating mass is equal to 1 hp. correct if im wrong please. that means youd essentially feel about a (lets go with a 50 lb difference total throughout all 4 rims) 23 hp. thats as good as my CAI. and i felt a significant change when i put that on.
 
It's odd, really. Mazda went to the trouble of spec'ing crazy-light wheels on the original Miatas, to the extent that the wheel put on one of the early-90's models was the lightest-weight OEM wheel ever put on a car, but as time has passed, they seem to have forgotten that that was important to them. The MazdaSpeed Miatas had big, sexy wheels on them that weighed a ton, as do the MS3's and MS6's. I'm not sure what's going on over at Mazda. ???
 
its nice they put some styling efforts into the rim to make them look as sweet as they do. (esp the ms6) like you said though....they lost the true meaning and importance of the lighter rim on performance. even if they did charge you more for a lighter rim, think if they put a 17 inch rim, the difference in price of the stock 18 inch rim and a 17 lightweight wouldnt really be all that significant. it wouldnt look bad on the car. plus youd get a much desired performance increase.
 
The stock setup already wins it's class... that's accomplishment enough for mazda. Like I said if they wanted to make it faster they wouldn't have put the restrictions on it they did.

Why would you put a VERY restrictive airbox on the car? Not everyone bought these for the performance...
 
I think this car is a bit on the advanced side to drive. With the TQ steer involved for the mass public, maybe they used the heavier wheel on purpose to slow the car down.

just another thought process..
 
yeah guys this is a mass produced car and 24lb 18" wheel isn't really heavy its more in the middle of the pack and actually a bit on the lighter side... so all im sayin is quit your bitchin!! your car with just a cai is pretty badass...


though this poster did pay for some light weight 18" wheel and tires for his n/a 3 and noticed a nice difference in handling and acceleration.
 
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