Stock tire-- > TIRE (P185/60R15) (84T) (BS) (ECOPIA EP422 GRAND TOUR A/S) per Bernardiparts.com. Stock LX Tire weight is 16lbs per Tirerack. 19.36lbs per HondaPartsNetwork
Stock wheel --> DISK, WHEEL (15X6J) (MAXION WHEELS)(BLACK) per Bernardiparts.com. According to Hondapartsnetwork, the Stock LX wheel weight is 17.99lbs (18lbs).
34lbs - 37.36lbs Total

Update: I had it all wrong. Weighed the stock LX CVT wheel weight on a bathroom scale. It is 33.6lbs (wheel and tire total). The stock tires are 185/60-15 Firestone FR740.



Edit: I figured I take it a step further. I searched for Hondaparts network and Tirerack for the stock aluminum wheels for the EX-L CVT and tires. Here's what came up.
Tires --> Bridgestone Turanza EL470 185/55R16
Stock EX-L tire weight is --> 18lbs

Weight Metric: 9.982 kg
Stock EX-L wheel weight is--> 22.01 lbs
40lbs Total



Guesstimated aftermarket weights -->
Just purchased a set of these from Tirerack. Tirerack states the 14" Kosei's K1 TS are 9.3lbs a piece.
185/60R14 General AltiMAX RT43 tires = 15lbs a piece.
Total weight = 24.3lbs

Confirmed aftermarket wheel weight is 25.2lbs.


I'm only saving 8.4lbs per wheel. Was hoping for more but I'll take what I can get. The stock steel wheels are lighter than I thought they'd be. So a total of 33.6lbs of wheel weight saved.

 

Nice work. Bookmarking as reference when I inevitably get new wheels.

 

How is the CVT treating you?

 

Bad! I don't own one. I'm waiting for one to arrive.

I've been getting all the stuff I want to add/change to it beforehand.

 

And you thought you were the Lone Ranger!!!

Yours truly - Tonto

 

Hi guys, saw you mentioning the shipping weight of items (wheels) as stated on our website. Just to clarify this information is all provided by the manufacturer. In our experience it can vary between the items shipping weight and the actual product weight. So it isn't always spot on and should be used solely as a point of reference. I posted this in the other similar topic too but wanted to make sure everyone saw it.

If you have any questions let me know and I'll try to find out for you!

Nate

 

Thanks for the reply/feedback Nate. It's much appreciated. That site is a gold-mine of information for me. I'm just really appreciative of the weight information on all the items, point of reference or not. It's the ONLY place I know that has this kind of information on ALL the items. I'll be pretty much living there for my stay with owning a Honda.

 

Updated info on stock tire weight on first post.

 

In another thread, there was a link to the accessory installation manual that had the weight differences for the various accessories. The factory alloys weighed 17 pounds more per set than the factory steel wheels.

An insignificant number by itself but if all the added accessories alter the weight of the car too much they have to put an amended GVWR sticker on the car.

If industry had learned to cast aluminum before they learned to roll and stamp steel we'd be getting rid of our clunky, heavy, alloy wheels and replacing them with those light and sleek steelies!

 

saving 8lb per wheel is HUGE. especially on a car that is torque challenged, you should most definately feel brisker acceleration. down side is i bet you may lose or only maintain mpg. either way, good mod, should treat you well

 

If you can feel a difference in acceleration from installing 8-pound-lighter wheels you have a truly sensitive behind. The best case would be around 2% with everything else being equal. One could easily lose much of that difference if the tires are larger in diameter or wider than stock.

 

anyone want to unload their stock lx steelies? i would like a set for winter wheels...

 

So you're telling me that 32lb of rotational mass on a 2500lb car is not noticeable? I'm guessing you don't have much experience with performance cars or understand the value of dropped rotational mass

 

Actually, I'm a mechanical engineer and have a fair amount of experience with rotational inertia. I built motorcycles and cars and raced them for three decades.

First, you get a bit of positive effect from the loss of mass. Drop a 2500 pound car to 2468 and you'll get a improvement in acceleration of about 1.2%

Now for the rotational effects. Assuming no change in tires the change in rotational inertia in the rims would also give an improvement in acceleration of another half percent or so. The reason that the effect is less is because the radius of rotation is less than the radius of the tire so the linear speed of any part of the rim will be diminished

If you are actually racing, these numbers are significant. You'd drop your ET by a tenth or two in the quarter mile.

On the street, an improvement of a bit less than two percent would not be physically perceptible and of use only in WOT acceleration. In any other situation you'd simply push the throttle a tiny bit more and get the desired result.

 

A mechanical engineer? Awesome! Could you tell me straight-forward what the expected improvement in acceleration would be if you drop a total of 32lbs of rotational weight from the wheels and also reduce the diameter of the wheel by 1" (185/60-15 to 185/60-14)?

Also, would this be significant enough to feel in your opinion? If not, what % of improvement in acceleration would be enough for a person to feel?

 

You're dealing with a lot of variables here! Change one and the results are somewhat predictable, change more than one and things get muddy.

So, thinking of it in an emperical manner, the improvement you get from reducing wheel mass is about 1.5 times the change in mass of the vehicle. This is because you are accelerating less mass linearly and you are also accelerating less mass rotationally. The loss of rotational mass doesn't affect the overall situation as much as the loss of overall mass because most of the mass of the wheel does not have the tangential velocity to match the linear velocity of the car.

To put it in terms of the Fit, let's think of reducing wheel mass by about 8 pounds per wheel, or 32 pounds overall. The car weighs 2500 pounds, so the anticipated change in acceleration for a WOT situation will be 2500/2468 or about 1.013. This means that your car will accelerate about 1.3% faster just from the reduction of mass. Multiply that by 1.5 to account for rotational effects and you get an improvement of 1.9%

Now, this improvement is measurable and if you do some calculations you will find that it will reduce quarter mile times by a couple of tenths, nothing to sneeze at if you are drag racing.

Now, whether you can feel it or not depends upon the sensitivity of your behind. If you could switch from one set of wheels to the other instantly while driving you could probably detect it, but since that is impossible you will likely not feel it in the seat of your pants. Normal humans vary their weight by a pound or two on a daily basis and you don't get up in the morning saying "gee, I feel light on my feet today!" because you happen to be on the low end of your weight range.

The other thing you wanted to consider is the diameter of the wheel and therefore tire. Smaller diameter rolling radii will improve off-the-line acceleration directly, simply because they can apply a greater force to the ground to accelerate the car. Reduce the radius by ten percent and you can expect 10 percent better acceleration if traction is maintained at a given gear ratio and wide open throttle. Remember, it is the rolling radius that is important, not the rim diameter. In the case of the sizes you mention, the 15 inch tire rolls 863 times per mile while the 14inch tires rolls 890 times in a brand that makes both sizes. That means that the rolling radius of the smaller tire is 863/890 or 0.97 that of the larger tire. That means that you could expect to accelerate about 3 percent better for a given torque applied to the wheel.

The rub comes when the transmission comes into play. A CVT will likely compensate for the smaller rolling radius as soon as it comes off of its highest (numerical) ratio while accelerating. You'll get a slight reduction in ET, but also a reduction in mileage since the engine will spin faster at cruise.

A manual gearbox won't compensate, but you'll have to shift sooner which also isn't good for the ET. The car will feel peppier in a given gear, but you'll shift up to the next gear sooner.

My recent experience with this was with my 5-speed Scion where I went from 185/60-15s to 195/65-15s. This is about an 8% increase in rolling radius and made the car feel a bit sluggish in a given gear. I soon adjusted my shift points and the feeling went away. The taller tires improved fuel economy (my goal) by about 3%.

 

Excellent response and I thank you George for providing me with all the detailed info and points of view. I plan on testing out the difference in 1/4 mile time by switching to the lighter wheels this week. Unfortunately, it will not be on the same day at the same track. Track elevations are similar and the expected temps around 3 degrees difference but still.

Either way, I'll see how it all goes. I just appreciate you trying to school me on how rotational mass and weight loss affects acceleration. I've read a lot of articles and info on this but am always open to new points of views (Or the same info just re-told and confirmed).


Also, anyone else that may be reading this thread, do not take all my results, tested weights, etc as golden. Weigh and test these theories and ideas out for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I really put this up as a self documentation but encourage anyone to test these things out yourself. Your results may vary.

 

One problem with both the motoring press is that it is dedicated to selling products. Any review will likely inflate the positive attributes of any product. The same applies to forums. Someone who has just spent $1000 on wheels isn't likely to say "they had no measurable effect" simply because they dearly want them to have an effect.

With wheels, you have to really spend the bucks to do much better than stock steel wheels. Most alloys are heavier and larger diameter wheels actually have a higher moment of inertia than smaller wheels. Check out the tires on a F1 car and you'll find that they are far from low profile! Truly lightweight alloy wheels are really a racing product and can be rather fragile. One rock or curb will ruin your whole day!

 

This is an awesome thread that I wish I had found earlier ... would have saved me from parading my ignorance of wheels and tires ... better late than never! I read through the whole thread and many of my questions have been answered, so thanks to ALL of you.

I am running stock steelies on my LX-6 but am "chomping at the bit" to get some nice wheels. Perhaps I'll wait a bit, continue reading and educating myself (thanks to all you FitFreaks).

Initially was thinking of getting 16" wheels and new tires, now tending towards new 15" ... keep all diameters the same ... save my stock wheels and tires for Winter. I won't be lowering anything or racing so for me mostly cosmetic. I do, however understand that you get what you pay for ... and I really don't want to put anything cheesy on my new car.

Myxalplyx you are a MADMAN! Am following your GREAT INTAKE TEST and am looking forward to your results. Good luck!

 

On my Scion I considered getting fancy wheels, but decided that I wanted to try a "clean" look and opted for salt flat disks on the stock steel wheels.

I am amazed at the number of people who have come up to me and complemented me on "those cool wheels!" Considering that the spun aluminum disks cost about $50 plus the cost of rattlecan white paint it seems like a lot of bang for the buck!

I don't think that they would as aesthetially pleasing on a 3rd gen Fit, though.