18 inch wheels

Speedy Emira said:

I don't think that would pass an MOT over here.

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Tomwa said:

If it's just for Track 18s are definitely going to be the right call. Lots of professional race teams use 18s, besides tires, wheels in 18s becomes a fountain of options. Track based? 18s. Whether it's Advan GT, Volk TE37, many other Rays wheels options, Titan 7, Motegi Racing, BBS, just tons of options.

I'm curious whether the rear parking brake is a "grind down until it fits", or something fairly innocuous. The car with the 18s showing the parking brake at all tells me it's functional. If they were just relying on wheel chocks they'd remove the brake assembly to save the weight.

I will say, I get that there are a lot of forging options that effectively press a blank face with a barrel and then CNC out the face pattern. For some of the other wheels on the market, I don't think they are doing this. Volk TE37s for example I think are forged into a "rough shape" of the spokes then CNC'd to trim out and do things like the hub face and lug-pattern.

The strength difference might be negligible, but it's gotta make a difference in the grain of the metal, especially for some higher concave designs.

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lynchy73 said:

Haven’t bought them, but there is a tuning shop in China that offers 18s for the Emira and they work with OEM brakes. 9” wide on the front, 11 on the back with 265 and 305.

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lynchy73 said:

This shop offers other styles of rim, and apparently the 18” version are designed to work with the OEM brakes.

The 18s are not particularly light, but are lighter than the original wheels. He states they are built to be strong, not as light as possible. These are CNC from a forged blank, so are somewhat flexible on the details I expect.

Personally, I’m on the wall a bit whether to go 18 or 19. Need to do some research on tyre options. They’d be strictly for track, so don’t need to be road legal. I personally prefer the look of the 19s.

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Totally Average said:

Thanks for the photos - I'm a performance first type of guy and looks are always a very distant second, but I was curious if the 18's would elongate the look of the car (which I think looks squatty from the side view) - I think those 18's on the green car definitely stretch out the proportions to something more balanced. If I could get a performance upgrade for the track, plus get better/cheaper tires and also get an upgrade in looks for free, I'm in on that.

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Emira photos with different diameter wheels (20, 19, 18)

I borrowed a photo posted by @Lotus64 and modified it to show what the car would look like with different diameter wheels. According to some other threads, 18" wheels will not fit on the rear due to the design of the parking brake. And of course, different wheels are different, this is just a...

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