art@kronen

Thank you Jesse!!!! Cant wait for you to race against the SL. He's planning to do Renntech too! LOL

trompazo

Ya, but look at the design of your wheels compared to these. They have a much thinner spoke.

My wheels have such a thin sopke that you can barely see them. I'm just skeptical that those wheels weight that much based on the design. They look heavy just looking a them. What are they made of?

But I guess for $2000K each they should be light. Mine are under 18 pounds front and 19 pounds rear (18x8 front and 18x9.5 rear) and they cost me $1525 for the whole set!

SLK55R

Nice ... thats a great price ... would you mind letting us all know who you bought them from and pics(didn't see the pic in your post)? Are yours forged aluminum? At that price I"ll buy another set for the track. Perhaps yours aren't forged and that why, to get to that weight, the amount of material needs to be less? I'd be a bit concerned about strength in that case. Of course if they are only track rims maybe they don't need to be as strong??? (no idea here) I do know that for my street rims I need rims that are very strong especially with the roads in california getting worse and worse.

As to what are they made of ... they are forged aluminum rims, I don't know the process or why they are able to make them so light. I can only say that multiple vendors are able to make rims this light.

Maybe some of the people that sell rims can answer this question. I did a quick search on google and found this on tire rack. It explains why forged aluminum rims are the ultimate for aluminum rims. Explains high cost and reasons for this process.

http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/....jsp?techid=90

ClayJ

Great stuff, Jesseliu!

Very happy for you. Nice car. Nice rims. Nice tires. You did it right.

I have the Carlsson 1/16 UL's on a bunch of my SL's -- it is a good wheel, and a good fitment. Nice to see that they work on the SLK55 with the 030 Pkg too.

I may do the same to mine - but I don't think that I'll go to 19's....

dsb

Jesseliu,

First, nice wheels and your car looks great.

In regards to Trompazo... I'm guessing he got the SSR Comp wheels. Tirerack has them for $469 fronts and 499 rears in the sizes he mentioned.

Like you, I bought my wheels more for show. I am now contemplating getting some for the track. SSR makes 18x8 as light as 14.5lbs and 18x9 at 17lbs. I'm not sure if those wheels have the right offset and lug configurations for a SLK55. There's quite a few manufacturers (Wedsport, SSR, etc) of good quality, light-weight wheels at reasonable prices. However, I don't really care for their looks. But on a track, looks don't matter that much.

trompazo

I believe that forged wheels can be stronger, but this is not necessarily the case. Not all forged wheels are created equally, just as not all cast wheels are created equally. My wheels are cast, but they are built by OZ which makes some of the strongest wheels in the industy and build wheels for many race teams.

They are just plain old OZ Ultraleggeras, but the biggest they come in is 18X8. So I had a 1.5" piece of aluminium band welded to the backside to make the rears into 9.5". Theres only a handful of shops in the US who can do this, and the process that they use does not comprmise the strenghth of the wheel. The welded in band is actually the strongest part of the wheel now. I'm pretty certain that with a 8mm spacer, a 285/30-18 will fit in there. I took pretty accurate measurements and I think they will barely fit without rubbing. I'll have to wait and see though. This would be for running Hooser A3S05 R compound tires which are essentially like slicks.

The OZ ultraleggera and Supraleggera are very stong track wheels and widely used as track wheels. And they are cheap. I'm NOT rich like all these guys buying $2000 wheels.

SLK55R

Trompazo,

Please keep us up to date if you can get the 285's to fit!

" I'm rich like all these guys buying $2000 wheels."
I didn't get that part ... I know you must be decently well off considering your stable but your point?

dsb

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's and interesting fix for the OZ wheels. Actually, I do like the design of the wheel but didn't like the sizes offered. Good job on the workaround. Let us know the results.

That'll be nice if you can get the 285's to work. That much extra tire patch would probably do wonders for the car's grip.

PS. Not worried about the lug bolt stress due to spacers?

trompazo

I corrected my post as I meant to say I'm NOT rich.

My point is that, personally, i feel that paying $8000 for wheels is not a smart move when I can buy $1500 wheels that allow me to put on larger rubber, weigh less, and fit my purpose better. Yes, I have alot of cars, but function is infinately more important than Bling to me. Thats probably makes me a oddball on this forum.

All of my cars are purpose built for some form of racing. But I understand that I'm not the typical MB owner. I thought it was funny when I took delivery of the car and the sales person went over all the functions. He showed me where the ESP off button was and said that I'd probably never use it. I guess most MB owners don't turn it off as soon as they get in the car and do a burnout as they leave the dealership.

trompazo

Nope. I run spacers on a Lotus Elise owith Hoosier R compound tires that likely can pull up to 1.2g's.

I likely will be converting the hubs to studs and using locktite on em. There won't be any problems.

CalifSLK

Forging by nature requires a relatively flat shape with uniform thickness. So the center of a 2 piece wheel can be forged. If the rim itself is forged, a welded seam will have to be in the rim. There are a number of derivative processes such as orbital forging to make components with varied thickness. But these are mostly hot forming processes and not the traditional forging by hammering the hot metal/powdered metal. The strength of the piece will be somewhere between a pressure casting and real forging.

SLK55R

"Forging is the process of forcing a solid billet of aluminum between the forging dies under an extreme amount of pressure. This creates a finished product that is very dense, very strong and therefore can be very light."

Sounds different than "But these are mostly hot forming processes and not the traditional forging by hammering the hot metal/powdered metal. "

I know nothing of metallugy so perhaps you can explain the difference?

CalifSLK

The traditional forging process makes very strong pieces by hammering. Usually a vertical hammer which slides up and down. The momentary force results in a hammer hitting the work piece is very large resulting in a very strong end product. Wrenches are typical products made from this process. To get a uniform pressure across the piece, it is usualy required that the work piece has a uniform thickness, such as the center of a 2 piece wheel. A one piece wheel cannot be made this way due to the different thicknesses. The forging dies are very large compared to the work piece due to the forces involved.

Other types of forging use pressure exerted by hydrolic cylinders plus a smaller sliding hammer doesn't have the same momentary force resulting in a somewhat stronger work piece but not as strong as a normal forging by the traditional hammering.

From this description, it seems the pressure is from hydrolic means only and no hammering is involved.

CalifSLK

They are very pretty and I am sure they are stronger than cast wheels and lighter than 2 piece wheels.