Interesting article on wheels. You can sorta read between the lines to see that we would be opening a can of worms by allowing aftermarket wheels.

One part I find interesting is where they say racing wheels are a wear item. I don't know of anybody having to replace their worn out factory wheels.

nasaspeed.news/tech/wheels-tires/were-no...nderstand-it-better/

rd7839 wrote:


I read the opposite with respect to strength.

"Jongbloed’s multipiece wheels are made of 6061 and heat treated to T6, which allows the material to give and return to its original shape. With one-piece cast wheels, they’re not as forgiving to repeated flexing. Regardless of which material you have, racing wheels should be treated as a wear item, and should be replaced at the appropriate intervals."

I interpret this to mean that the Jongbloed wheel is better suited to a wider range of stresses, since it can flex and compensate to varying conditions. The stock cast wheel not being as forgiving, would be strong up to a certain point which would then break once stressed past that point.

Without testing, we cant say if it is opening a can of worms or not. But if the wheel weighs the same as the stock, and is the same off set, what else would make it an advantage over the stock wheel?

Placement of the weight or weight distribution,and brake cooling among others. Where the majority of the rotational mass is located will make a huge difference even if they are the same weight. The only way to make sure they are the same as stock is to make them exactly like stock, in other words reproduce cookie cutters and what would be the point of that.

As it's been said before stock wheels are very strong and are not suffering failures and are cheap and easy to find. Looks is not a good reason to fix what aint broke.

Have you ever noticed that most, if not all big sanctioning bodies like F1, Indycar and NASCAR control wheels and tires? Usually they issue the teams the sets and check them after use. The reason is that they know there is room for big improvements with them and teams could make their own wheels, putting the weight exactly where they want it and gain an advantage. Plus cheating would be relatively easy.

The lesson to learn is that wheels,even of the same weight are not equal and if the new ones are faster, we all have to upgrade, even if it's just perception.

Looks really don't matter to me, but having 924s, finding decent phone dials that aren't corroded or bent was a challenge as the pool of available wheels is much smaller than cookie cutters. It took me a while to amass three good sets. I realize the 924s is more rare. I am neutral on cookie cutters because I don't use them.

rd7839 wrote:


YMMV, but I've never seen a single 944-Spec car overcook it's brakes so I don't know that increased brake cooling would have any affect on performance.

I have any early offset car and can run either cutters or early phonies (which, I would assume, have different rotational masses) and have never considered performance testing one wheel vs the other beyond comparing the weight of the 2 wheels.

Given that the early offset cars have the option of two wheels of equal weight wouldn't it fair to give the late offset cars the option, too? Otherwise, I could within the rules, figure out if a phonie or cutter had better rotational mass and get an advantage on a late offset car whose only option is phonies.

***I have no intention of doing so, I can't imagine it would make .0000000001% of a difference if weight and offset were the same. While I have no plans for purchasing the aftermarket wheels I'm fine with the proposal to add them.