Lighter wheels and performance

[Phil O]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to see if anyone had any insight or experience with going with lighter wheels than the stock and noticing any increase or decrease in performance?

I am curious as I recently put a set of Venomrex 602’s on my raptor which each wheel is 10 lbs lighter. I haven’t noticed any increase in performance or mpg though. Has anyone else? I was thinking about replacing the KO2’s with a tire that is anywhere from 4-7 lbs heavier than the KO2’s and total unsprung wheel weight should still be lighter than the stock weight. I was hoping this would not decrease my performance or mpg though.

Thoughts and/or experience would be much appreciated!

 

[nikhsub1]

Lighter unsprung weight will always help. When it's rotational, it helps even more. When it is the outermost part of the rotation it helps the most. That means tire weight is a bit more important than wheel weight. Really though we are talking about a nearly 3 ton truck - you probably won't notice much of anything in reality, when I went from the 36lb OEM beadlocks to 25lb wheels I didn't really feel any difference that I could really discern. On a sports car, I have clearly noticed a difference though, probably in steering as well as the car just feeling a bit lighter on its feet so to say. You won't really get much feedback from the steering in these things nor the 'lighter on it's feet' feeling either. At least I didn't.

 

[Phil O]

Lighter unsprung weight will always help. When it's rotational, it helps even more. When it is the outermost part of the rotation it helps the most. That means tire weight is a bit more important than wheel weight. Really though we are talking about a nearly 3 ton truck - you probably won't notice much of anything in reality, when I went from the 36lb OEM beadlocks to 25lb wheels I didn't really feel any difference that I could really discern. On a sports car, I have clearly noticed a difference though, probably in steering as well as the car just feeling a bit lighter on its feet so to say. You won't really get much feedback from the steering in these things nor the 'lighter on it's feet' feeling either. At least I didn't.

Oh yeah. I guess thinking losing 10 lbs each wheel would have made a difference. When increase tire weight you can tell right away both in performance and MPG decrease typically.

 

[RivRaptor]

The logic behind the lighter wheels is good but I believe it is negated by the fact that our trucks are so heavy and about as areo dynamic as a brick that its hard to "feel" the difference. Coming from someone who rides / owns light weight racing Ducati's with carbon wheels & lighten flywheels etc, less recipacating weight does make a difference at higher speeds and can be felt. But how often would / do we get our Raptors to high enough speeds to actually notice a difference? And once at those higher speeds would we notice it enough to justify the money spent is a good question. I don't remember the exact figure but 1 ounce of weight on the rim is x amount of pounds @ 100mph, so it is significant.

 

[Phil O]

The logic behind the lighter wheels is good but I believe it is negated by the fact that our trucks are so heavy and about as areo dynamic as a brick that its hard to "feel" the difference. Coming from someone who rides / owns light weight racing Ducati's with carbon wheels & lighten flywheels etc, less recipacating weight does make a difference at higher speeds and can be felt. But how often would / do we get our Raptors to high enough speeds to actually notice a difference? And once at those higher speeds would we notice it enough to justify the money spent is a good question. I don't remember the exact figure but 1 ounce of weight on the rim is x amount of pounds @ 100mph, so it is significant.

That is interesting. Adding a heavier tire will kill mpg as we know. One would assume that decreasing wheel weight and adding a heavier tire with the new setup being lighter than the stock setup would not kill the MPG’s but this sounds like no matter what your mpg’s will decrease overall?

 

[IT8NTEZ]

Discerning a difference in a behemoth like our Raptors is unlikely. I've chased unsprung weight on my sports cars with all sorts of super-light forged wheels and titanium lug nuts. I finally gave up as my butt dyno was always telling me it was worth the money but track times didn't correlate. You do you.

 

[K223]

I have to agree with the general consensus voiced here. 10lbs a wheel may show a little improvement on a drag car on the strip being timed. Or maybe on a little compact car’s gas mileage on the street. But this much weight on such a heavier truck with aerodynamics like a brick probably not much so. Can’t say even in the breaking dept. you would feel much of anything. These KO2’s are heavy.

 

[Stroked out]

I have a set of mud tires that i put on to play with. I can feel my truck get slower ever time i put them on. According to the websites my mud tires are lighter than ko2. So i guess grip or aerodynamics of a tire makes a difference as well.

 

[nikhsub1]

I have to agree with the general consensus voiced here. 10lbs a wheel may show a little improvement on a drag car on the strip being timed. Or maybe on a little compact car’s gas mileage on the street. But this much weight on such a heavier truck with aerodynamics like a brick probably not much so. Can’t say even in the breaking dept. you would feel much of anything. These KO2’s are heavy.

Most other same sized tires are heavier than the KO2's which are relatively light at 64lbs. For example, Nitto Ridge Grapplers are ~71lbs per tire.

 

[D3 SS 3D]

Let's run the quick total weight math, for ease, we'll just say that you save 10 pounds a wheel (vs. stock) and replace all 4 + spare reusing stock tires. So, 50 pounds total weight savings. If you have a 2020 SCREW, that's 50 / 5697 which equates to .00877 (.8%) in total weight compared to stock.