SEight wheels & tyre combo

[Terry Chapple]

Hi All

Looking to change the wheels and tyres on my 1998 SEight,  at present I have the factory fitted 185x15 all round and also a spare set of 205x15 thinking of 185x13 on the front and 205x13 rears, This will only be for road use... any recommendations? ?

[stephenh]

If it is just road use why would you want to change from 15" wheels to 13" wheels? You will be restricting your choice of tyres quite a bit.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

No one can really choose wheel designs for you, style and colour is such a personal thing, one persons favourite design is another's most hated, and all that!

The best advice I can give, is to choose the tyre that you want to use first, then find a wheel to suit. As Stephen said, the choice in 13" sizes is much more restricted these days, though it does include some fantastic track tyres.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Oh, and another thing to bear in mind; has your SEiGHT got side pipe exhausts or an inderslung system? If it's underslung, ground clearance can be an issue, and tyre sizes that work fine on other Westfields may be troublesome on yours.

(I seem to remember quite a few SEiGHTs vein came on 16" wheels, due to the clearance issues!)

[Steven Thorne]

Depending on tour brakes you may not get 13" wheels over them.

[Weekend Warrior]

55 minutes ago, Steven (Steve T) - Joint Thames Valley AO said:

Depending on tour brakes you may not get 13" wheels over them.

I asked this question a few weeks ago but git no replies ,I want to know if 13” wheels will clear the Westfield red 4 pot callipers.. Any ideas 

[Kingster]

14 hours ago, Weekend Warrior said:

I asked this question a few weeks ago but git no replies ,I want to know if 13” wheels will clear the Westfield red 4 pot callipers.. Any ideas 

It will depend on the wheels - I don't have the same calipers, but I tried some revolutions and they fouled the caliper, whereas CXRs just fit.

So much of the time, unless someone has the exact same setup, it's a trial fit exercise.

[Weekend Warrior]

38 minutes ago, Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO said:

It will depend on the wheels - I don't have the same calipers, but I tried some revolutions and they fouled the caliper, whereas CXRs just fit.

So much of the time, unless someone has the exact same setup, it's a trial fit exercise.

Thanks for the reply Chris , 

Its a Minilite type wheel . I’ll give them a go and if they’re no good I’ll pass them on for what I pay for them 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

9 minutes ago, Weekend Warrior said:

Its a Minilite type wheel . I’ll give them a go and if they’re no good I’ll pass them on for what I pay for them 

That one makes it even harder to answer, deffinately a case of trial and error. (The Minilite style is, deservedly, so popular, that there are a lot of different manufacturers, and they’re all subtly different; indeed one maker of the premium Minilites does three or four different ranges of them, that are all slightly different to each other!

[Steven Thorne]

18 hours ago, Weekend Warrior said:

I asked this question a few weeks ago but git no replies ,I want to know if 13” wheels will clear the Westfield red 4 pot callipers.. Any ideas 

Mine has Hispec front callipers  and i seem to remember that Simon, who built the car, told me that some 13"s will fit but are very marginal with any stick on balance weights. Mine currently has 16"  Image slit rims with 225's on the front and 245's on the rear.   

[Terry Chapple]

On 16/03/2019 at 11:26, stephenh said:

If it is just road use why would you want to change from 15" wheels to 13" wheels? You will be restricting your choice of tyres quite a bit.

It would seem I am better off sticking with 15s.. bit of trial and error I guess to find the perfect combo

[stephenh]

I think the trouble is that because all the quicker Speed Series cars are on 13" wheels, and most keen trackdayers as well, owners of Westfields have a tendency to think that 13" wheels are the things to have, regardless of the use they put their car to. A competition car, and a regular trackday car, will benefit from using the smaller wheels because all other things being equal they will be slightly lighter than the larger rim wheels and so give less unsprung weight. However on a mainly road car I would be very surprised if it was enough to be detectable. The make and design of the tyre would be much more likely to make a difference to the feel of the car, and as said above, you have much more choice of tyre if you use 15" wheels.

In fact, when I had my sprint car, I used 13" wheels in competition, and 15" wheels for road use and very occasional trackdays. The 15" wheels were fitted with R1R tyres, which I think sadly are no longer made, but they were a great tyre for something like a Westfield used mainly on the road. 

[Terry Chapple]

Thank you Stephen... I have made my mind up now to stick with 15" wheels as you mention there is far more choice about and being that the car will only be for road use changing to 13s will make no difference apart from complicating things. Now the hard part of choosing a style 

[cjdad76]

Terry - I have a spare set of SEight wheels that I might be selling on if interested.

Set of 4:

- Team Dynamics Pro Race 15" ET23's

- Toyo T1R's 205/50/15's

They are like new having only done a few miles, spending the rest of the time taking up space in my garage, but never used.  If interested, let me know and I can provide photo's / price etc.

Rgds, Chris

[cjdad76]