Roadster BozeForged Wheels Group Buy - Idea...

[wiztecy]

Hi all,

So one aspect of the Roadster I want to work on / upgrade are the wheels. I find that the 16" fronts make the car way to twitchy and unstable when traveling above 70mph. Also we all know how much of a pain it is being stuck with the front tire size and limited tire choices due to that size. What I'm looking to address this is a 17" front and 18" rear, also going wider to fill in the Roadster better.

I did some research and found a very reputable custom wheel maker, BozeForged, who make some pretty awesome wheels: Boze Alloys - Custom billet wheels and forged wheels

With that, I contacted them to a do a "feeler" on their company as well as with my idea of creating a new set of wheels for the Roadster. My requirements were a light but strong wheel. They came back saying that the "mesh" design is the wheel for that. They recommended going with the "Daytona" or "Performance" wheel in the "Xclusive" series to fit this requirement. The representative I spoke with was very professional, knowledgeable, and gave me a great impression about the company. Also many well know celebrities / race car drivers have used Boze to create wheels for their personal cars, so they do have a good reputation that's well established in the wheel business.

Below are pics of the mesh wheel choices:

Boze Alloys - CUSTOM FORGED WHEELS

Daytona:

Performance:

With these wheels you have a wide variety of paint and design in the way these wheels will look in terms of finish to suit your taste, so there's lots of room here for uniqueness. Also if you are not after weight/strength you could go for some other wheel design in their pick-list.

As for tire sizes I'm looking at the following sizes which appear (in theory / calculations) to work with the 1.5 traction control system since we're fixed on the front to rear tire rotation:
Front 205/45R17
Rear 235/40R18

These wheels are not "drilled & filled" wheels to make some off the shelf wheel work on the Roadster. I consider drilled & filled dangerous and would not throw that type of wheel on my car unless its in a museum. These will be a fully custom one piece forged wheel made to order.

I'm also looking at putting a little stagger/dish into the rear wheel. But I don't want to adversely affect the handling performance of the wheel which the dish effect does. But I want to see at what point the loss in handling occurs and if with our offsets it may or may not adversely affect it. I'm putting functionality/handling as a higher priority over looks. But you can design the wheel however you may like to suite your personal needs.

Also I'd like to either trailer my Roadster down to Boze Forged's shop in Laguna Hills, CA, in order to have the technicians look at the car, properly measure the car, and offer expert advice on what numbers/offsets, etc, we should be running in order to make the Roadster hook up the best it can when cornering on the tarmac. If there's a Roadster owner who lives close by who can offer their time for this measurement that would be fantastic and save me a 12 hour round-trip hauling my Roadster down there on my truck/trailer.

As for the cost of the wheel, its not all that bad. For the fronts I was estimating the cost to be around $550-$650 per wheel and the rears to be $750-$850 range fully built.

With the group buy, what I found on the Internet is that BozeForged will waive the shipping cost if there's multiple buyers. I didn't find anywhere that a group buy was able to get a discount on the wheel cost itself. Looking at the cost per wheel I think its rather reasonable and can't complain, especially when you look at the cost of the Tesla Wheels.

Feel free to discuss, but this is an idea I've had brewing for some time.

 

[NomoC8]

I'm interested as long as they can do this:

 

[TOBASH]

Wiz, I like the initial work you have done BUT I think the price needs to be dropped by 1/3 to 1/2.

Please keep up the good work.

The design of the rims is appealing but I cannot discern a difference between your 2 choices.

I want new forged rims BUT your price will come in around 3K. I humbly believe there may be more and better choices.

Thanks for looking into this and I will be following this thread eagerly for developments.

NomoC8... Wiz is trying to help us. My suggestion is that you carefully read your signature line and then try to live up to it. ~

 

[hcsharp]

Hi all,

So one aspect of the Roadster I want to work on / upgrade are the wheels. I find that the 16" fronts make the car way to twitchy and unstable when traveling above 70mph. ...

I have a set of the base wheels as well as the forged wheels and I never experience "twitchy and unstable" at any speed up to 100 mph (the highest I've gone). I wonder if your problem is due to the non-stock steering ratio you installed? Or your suspension?

I also question whether you would have interference with the mud flaps or fenders without reducing the aspect ratio of the larger tires. I bought snow tires one year that were less than 1/8" from the mud flap on full turn (and actually interfered on uneven ground) but were supposedly the correct size. That particular tire ran slightly large, but it illuminated the fact that there's not a lot of extra room in the wheel wells.

If I drove a 1.5 I wouldn't commit to this until somebody tried it and proved it didn't mess up traction control. There are tires that people have tried that worked according to theory, but didn't work very well on the car. I'm sure you know more than I do about this - you drive a 1.5 after all.

The only good thing I can see is it would give you more tire choices. I don't mean to rain on your idea, but you asked for a discussion.

 

[Doug_G]

Twichy and unstable suggests toe out - maybe check the alignment?

 

[dhrivnak]

I also ran more than 100 mph (safely on a drag strip) and my car was glass smooth at that speed. Not a hint of twitching.

 

[wiztecy]

The twitchy/unstable may have been too strong of a word. Its always been there since I bought the car but yes, It did get amplified with the tighter suspension and quicker steering. I've also driven a close to stock Roadster lately as well and feel it there too. I don't know if there are those who ride streetbikes and used a 16", 17" and 18" front wheel and how fast the front is driven with the 16 vs the 17/18. (Note the rake of the headtube is important with this as well), but its about how fast the front reacts do to its smaller diameter. Same when you've drive a car with 13" wheels, such as the old subarus. If you understand that, you know what I'm talking about. What I'm trying to get out here is that there's room for improvement with my setup. Everybody's taste is different as well as their own personal configuration they're running. Trade-off when you go taller is you lose some responsiveness in cornering but you get added stability. Also when you're spirited driving it takes longer for the sidewalls to heat up which do affect performance of the tire.

Just threw this out if there were any interest. As for price, you can't get custom wheels for any lower of a cost. At around $2700/$2900 for custom wheels, I don't see this as expensive. Look at the Roadster wheels, I believe $3200 from Tesla. But if you're trying to compare "off the shelf" wheels to a custom wheel price, you're in a different ball park. Remember we don't have a common bolt pattern here so our choices are very limited. Hence where people are doing drilled & filled to make things work. And I'm not a big fan of our limited tire selections.

My ETA on this will be around next spring unless my car budget opens up earlier on.

Also as Doug implied I'll go throw my Roadster up on the alignment rack to see if the toe was thrown out. That's the best first step to ensure everything is in-line. I know between the time I had my first alignment and did my second alignment (1.5 years time lapse) the numbers did get thrown out of whack. I didn't hit anything that should have knocked them off like that. Thing is when that stuff gets knocked off the dialed in marks you don't feel it until things start to add up and the car eventually gives you the impression its going overboard or understating your inputs.

 

[TOBASH]

I'm glad you are doing this.

I will be following closely.

I might be interested in flying out and watching the test runs when and if the time comes. If you are not adverse, I might also appreciate driving your car before and after to get a feel. I have a 2.5 with adjustable suspension BUT there should still be some major similarities.

Best,

T