Barney, I'm sure you know what you're talking about, but I don't think Dan
was talking about racing tires, or racing conditions -- if he was, then I
totally agree he would be better off with alloy wheels. But I don't think B
owners have to worry about 48-spoke wires. I would suspect that good 14" 60-
or 72-spoke wires would be considerably stiffer than the stock 15" steel
wheels on an A, at any rate. The later B's Rostyle wheels look like they
might be reasonably stiff, though (assuming they're decently put together,
which is a big assumption, I admit).
The moral here, I suppose, is not to "overtire" your wheels. You don't
want the wheel to be the "weakest link".
on 6/10/02 5:12 PM, Barney Gaylord at barneymg@ntsource.com wrote:
> At 09:40 AM 6/10/02 -0700, Max Heim wrote:
>> on 6/7/02 10:54 PM, Dan Furbish at BarnOwl@world.std.com wrote:
>>> and when cornering I can feel the flex or the not total control,
>> there's a wishy washy feel to wire wheels when cornering hard.
>>
>> I extremely doubt you can feel the wire wheels flex... if you can they are
>> in dangerously poor condition. ....
>
> Oh?
>
> Well I can add a few cents worth here. My MGA has bolt on wheels. The
> first time I bought race tires (about 1994) I mounted them on the stock
> stamped and welded steel wheels. The race tires are of course lots less
> mushy feeling that the street tires, but I was encountering some
> substantial amount of front end shudder on hard tight turns. For the time
> being I was attributing this to possibly weak shock absorbers, but that was
> ultimately not the case. I was also getting stress cracks in the steel
> wheels.
>
> One year later I bought the forged aluminum wheels, and what a
> difference!!! After that the nose of the car would just swish around the
> corners in the same places on the same pavement with no noticeable bump or
> shudder, and everything was much more controlable. The only difference is
> that the aluminum wheels are very stiff, and the original steel wheels flex
> like a warped phonograph record. (We all remember those don't we?) When
> the steel wheel is substantially stressed and flexed in a hard turn, and it
> hits even the smallest bump in the pavement, the tire will lose some grip
> with the pavement, and the wheel will snap quickly back towards the
> original flat condition. It then plants itself firmly back on the pavement
> to take up the side load again, and subsequent ripples in the pavement make
> it repeat the little dance. The aluminum wheels are so much stiffer by
> comparison that they resist the flexing and eliminate the shudder all
> together.
>
> Now you can speculate all you want as to whether 60 spoke of 72 spoke wire
> wheels may be stiffer than the stamped steel wheels, but in my prior
> experience the 48 spoke wire wheels are definitly more flexible than the
> stamped steel wheels. Those spokes stretch and retract a lot like tension
> springs, and the wheels can be in perfect condition when it happens. For
> my money they would have to be 72 spoke wheels, or I wouldn't even try to
> use the race tires on them. Even then I'd be a little skeptical, because I
> haven't had the opportunity to try it. But by best guess is that almost
> any aluminum wheel will be stiffer than any wire wheel, and probably would
> make a noticeable difference in handling, especially on a slightly rough
> surface.
>
> $.03,
>
> Barney Gaylord
> 1958 MGA with an attitude (and a bunch of broken steel wheels)
> http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
>
--
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Max Heim
mvheim@studiolimage.com
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