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I went to the local dragstrip on Friday and noticed something peculiar about the civics that were running. The hardcore guys (with gutted gen5 civics running nitrous and/or forced injection) ran with steel wheels on the front. I'm talking the ugly $29 steel wheels people sometimes use to mount snow tires. I started thinking about this for a bit - is it because the wheel has less rotating mass than aluminum wheels? Keep in mind that I have a degree in mechanical engineering - but I don't know enough about rims (weight, cross section, etc...) to make a conclusion. There were about 10 civics out on Friday, some running as low as the mid 13's - most of them had sweet-a$$ 17" on the rear, so I'm assuming they usually drive with a full set of aluminum wheels.

Any thoughts? By the way, my fastest time was 17.010 @ 82MPH. Not bad for my first time out and with a 100lb subwoofer enclosure in my trunk! (my car is bone-stock too). I'm installing a magnaflow cat-back exhaust and aem CAI this week, plus I'm going to take out my subwoofer box - hopefully that'll bring me into the 16's!

 
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i see your aslo new to the drag scence,those ugly steel rims were used cus they had slick tires on them,i am sure they replaced them with watever they had to match the rear,i am too embarrass to even pull up near the starting line in 01 coupethe new civics r more for show than go,u can spend thousands of bucks just to gain a 5 to 20(not sure the range) hp but i think u can trade a RSX with the money

 
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i've seen daily drivers like that here, never really got the point... but ya i would guess its lighter then most rims... also keep in mind that the inside of the rims is easier to spin then the outside. if they were doing 13s, i would think they would get racing wheels that are like 14" big and weigh half of what the steelies weigh, but ya just ask them cause i'm curious myself what the real reason is...

 
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I'm heading to the track again in two weeks - (Toronto Motorsports in Cayuga, Ontario for those interested). I'll ask one of the hardcore 13-second civic guys why they do it. I'll keep you posted!