Inkubus

Hey, I understand this might be a stupid question but I'm willing to take that risk at the expense of some face.

I was looking at some pics of cars with dish rims today and I had a thought: wouldn't dish rims create unnecessary drag since the air on the side of the car can now flow into the rim?

And then my thoughts went further...don't spoked rims create drag just in general? Wouldn't a solid rim make more practical sense?

If your interest is the fastest race car you can have then the least drag possible is better. Or do I just have too much time to think about things that don't matter?

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

Not a stupid question. Actually can make for some good debate/discussion.

You make a good point, however, there's another factor involved: weight.

A solid/more-solid faced rim would add more rotational weight. Now, from the standpoint that most (if not all) of us drive Japanese cars, the slightest bit of weight to power through makes a huge difference. Case in point, lightweight flywheels. The D17 flywheel is ~17lbs. An ACT streetlite is 11lbs, the 6lb difference is huge. Now the prolite is a mere 2lbs lighter, and it makes even a bigger difference.

Now look at the other end of the driveshaft to where the rims are. Stock steelies, 22lbs. I have lightweight spoked rims at 17lbs. Let's say that you have solid faced rims that are lighter than stock at 20lbs. That's 3lbs over my rims; but there's 2 of them that the engine is trying to overpower, so your engine is trying to move 6lbs of extra rotational mass than my rims.

Another factor involved is cooling. On a road course, solid faced rims wouldn't allow the brakes to be cooled as much as a spoked rim would. That causes decreased braking efficiency, so you'd lose ground in the corners (have to brake a lot earlier).

There's probably more to it than that, and I seriously pulled all of this out of my *** (engineering background, though). Needless to say, the extra drag coefficient would be, in my opinion, negligible compared to the other factors involved.

Inkubus

Ah I see what you're saying. So it's not really drag that would cause the problem; that is negligible in the light of other, more important factors. I can see what you mean. Didn't even think about brake cooling...good point lol.