949 Racing wheel survey - New designs!
 

Check out the new designs and share your feedback.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/949Racing

Really excited about this. Hope you all will share your feedback, can't wait to get more wheels out to market.

Saw the email and took the survey... been looking for 15" wheels for my MR2 and really like the look of the 6 spoke design Sanger the best. I had 6ULs way back when on my track/autocross setup Integra...

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-.../i-pDmfh6W.jpg

We had some comments about the spoke shape because people couldn't tell how concave the designs were. So we made new renders. Take a look.

Rank the three designs

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the survey link doesn't work anymore :(

That's right, just starting discussion here :)

Damn the Sanger looks sick!

I'm not seeing substantial differences between 6UL and Coto though .. slightly different bends here and there and that seems it.
I also prefer "looks wise" wheels of lesser spoke count, like Sanger. And they are easier to clean due more clearance between spokes. I guess, slight drawback might be a bit less evenly distributed load between reduced count of spokes, which may ask for slight extra material/weight to compensate, but looks wise it's nicer, yes.

Yup, they are similar but, different enough to be their own designs. 6UL has shorter, more curved spoke attached to drop center. Spoke also has slightly convex curve. Coto is much longer spoke attached to outer flange, concave curvature. The actual patterns are a bit different too, although they do look similar.

6UL looks best in lower offsets so a lip can be included. In high offsets, the lip gets to small and spokes too convex. Narrow 6UL sizes also make brake clearance a challenge. Coto provides more brake room and allows a concave shape even with high offset. Weights are about the same at the same load rating.

imo, spokes should follow lug count. 5 spokes for 5 lugs :) 6 spokes on 5 lugs irritates my ocd. 1 can be centered up, but the rest are always going to look 'off' once they're on a rolling car.

The Coto is looking thick!

Like them all, but I still like the lip on the 6ul. Also the shorter, seemingly straighter spokes just "look" stronger. I understand that is unlikely, but ...

You have amazing vision. Once the car is rolling, trying to count spokes and lug nuts makes me really dizzy.

whenever the car stops, which is every 1/2 mile around me, it is not going to be stopped with the penta-star facing up, and is going to look weird...

It's nice to have spokes mach lug nut count, but imho more so for strength/weight. As in holes for lugs can be positioned exactly where already extra material of spokes already is, and thus is not needed to be added, where lug is placed off root of spoke. Looks wise .. not enough to trigger my OCD. I use mostly two set of wheels, both are similar design (6-thin straight spoke) and obviously of twin's 5x100 PCD (for summer-track:17x7.5 Taneisya T6, for winter:16x7 SSR Type-C), not seeing "non-maching" a visual issue. As for wheel design itself, subjectively 6-spoke looks better to my eye then 5-spoke .. spokes itself seem, somewhat more symmetrical / better fitting on car.

Sanger, then Coto, then 6UL. I don't like spokes not coming to the edge of the wheel, and I prefer less spokes than more. Also, please consider offering 17x7.5 wheels as well.

This. We want wheels for stock tire sizes!

I would be all over the Sanger in a 18x7.5/18x8 wheel with a ~35 offset.

A 5 spoke wheel does allow a smaller diameter hub pad area, which would then require longer spokes. Longer spoke needs to be thicker assuming the same attachment points. Fewer spokes need to be thicker than more spokes.

A 5 spoke will also have bigger gaps between spokes at rim. Those larger gaps mean the spoke attachment needs to be broader (more mass) and barrel isn't as well supported between spokes. Not to say you can't make a great wheel with 5 spokes, just pointing out that there is a technical reason you don't see more 4 and 5 spoke wheels in top level motorsports. Generally speaking, more spokes improves stiffness to weight and strength to weight ratios. 6 spokes or 6 pairs of spokes are our brand.

First batch will be 18x10 and 18x11. Currently no plans for 17x7 or 18x7.5. Not our market.

Coto, tou our surprise, has about the same high strength to weight ratio as 6UL. I thought it would be heavier. Different properties overall though, slightly stiffer in some areas and less stiff in other areas. Sanger is a tad heavier than either.

It was fun playing around with all the little fillets, chamfers, compound curvatures, tapers, pocket machining and seeing how they affected fatigue life and stiffness. The best part is that we can have an idea, make a little tweak to the design and run an FEA simulation very quickly now because it's all in house. Rapid iterations are king. For the 6UL, we replicated our 10% over VIA 15x10 6UL and saw that it had 2x the fatigue life required for the VIA test (100,000 cycles) even when loaded to 20% over VIA load. The new 6UL and Coto designs runs to 1 million cycles at 20% over VIA.

From my experience imho 17x8 is preferable to x7.5. One still can use stock sized 215 on x8, but on x7.5 imho sidewalls are a bit mushy for 225 (which is common width for both cost reaseon and hybrid DD & track usage). Though for sizing commonality .. new UUHP tires mostly start from 18. Another point to consider.

@949 Racing: i'm interested in .. what would be IDEAL design of wheel regarding strength/weight, if one completely ignores/drops looks and design can be of any type? Even if it's just theoretical exercise, imho interesting enough offtopic :)

According to generative AI design, it's a web looking thing. Looks like Coto near hub but branches out like tree roots near rim. Also has branches front to back reaching behind caliper. Could only be printed. Impossible to cast, forge or CNC machine. Look around and you'll see some high tech non-automotive projects with wheels like that. Space exploration and such.

I much prefer the Coto over the other two designs, but would also prefer a 17x8 sizing.

Love the look of 5 spokes or 6 spokes wheels, so def love the look of Sanger. Offset maybe +33~+35? Of course 18s are good for solid track run, but for people who prefer to used the wheels for both daily and track 17s are ideal imo.

If you guys make 17x8+33~35, I’ll def order one.

17x8+35 w 225/45/17 is my current setup & loving it daily & track/Autox w it.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...57f3d66c32.jpg

Thanks for the great feedback all. Really looking forward to getting y'all some wheels.

Thanks for gauging interest within the community! I think there is more community interest for a skinnier wheel than it may appear on the surface and from sales figures. Many of us street/casual autocross people settle for wider wheels because the styles we want are only available in those widths (looking at you gram lights, Apex, etc). I think you guys have an absolutely stunning 6-spoke in the Sanger that would be an insta-buy for me personally in an 18x8 or even 18x8.5.

Any chance for a 17x10?

No plans for that size at current. First production run for early 2022 will be 18x10, 18x11. After that, 17 x8, 17x9 but probably not 17x10. Sorry!

Coto and 6UL are the best �� Maybe 6UL just slightly nicer than Coto. I am buying 6UL 17x9+40 next month so I may not be your target customer for the new weels :D
Also, Coto might have a higher strength to weight due to the spoke design. I wonder how they would compare to 6UP. Keep us updated :D

If we build a 17x9 Sanger, it will be a VIA certified 830KG load rated wheel so it won't be as light as the non- JWL/VIA certified Mach V mystery wheel. The Mach V appears to be gravity cast-flow form, which may also be how we make the Sanger. Defacto industry standard (JWL/SAE) load rating for a 17" 5x100 is 690kg by the way.

Out of interest is 690kg as high (or higher) than the factory wheels? Thanks.

OEM wheels are JWL 690kg. It will be right on the wheel so you can take it off and look for the info.

It's important to note that most OEM wheels for cars sold in multiple markets will also have TUV (Germany) certification. TUV standards are the highest in the world, higher than JWL (Japan) & SAE (USA). TUV wheels are heavy! For this reason an OEM 690KG rated wheel will often be capable of handling much higher load than 690kg. Aftermarket wheels not sold in Germany will not have the TUV rating so they're built much lighter.

This can be a complex subject so we wrote an article to help make sense of it: http://949racing.com/how-strong-is-your-wheel.aspx

Thanks heaps mate, really appreciate the detailed response.

Hello,
Any news on the new wheels? 😁
Thank you,
Andrei

In progress. Doing a lot of lab testing of sample wheels right now. Fine tuning things. No ETA for production wheels yet.

Any updates a year later?

Haven't posted here because the first batches are 15 and 17" 4 lug. We started taking orders for those a while ago and they're due here in the next month or so. 17 & 18" 5 lug next!

Here are some of the 4 lug wheels in production now.

17" 6UL
https://www.949racing.com/wp-content...ar-3-800px.jpg

17" 6UL
https://www.949racing.com/wp-content...l-1-1024px.jpg

15" 6UL
https://www.949racing.com/wp-content...charcoal-2.jpg

15x9 Coto (design study)
https://www.949racing.com/wp-content...-r6-3-1024.jpg

I remember reading somewhere that the 6UL design was inspired by some 7-split spoke Lotus wheels? Is 6UL lighter than 7UL or are there any other beneficial factors when it comes to spoke design?

Not the case. I wonder where that came from. The basic pattern came from a prototype 16" centerlock wheel for a Radical SR8. We used the pattern, changed the spoke profile, added a draft to the spoke cross section, added a lug well to stiffen the wheel, eliminated the stepped lip and a made a few other changes to come up with the original 6UL design.

Overall 10-12 spokes is the sweet post for load dispersion. We chose 12 because of the symmetry although it makes it harder to match up with 4 and 5 lug bolt patterns. Without getting too deep into the weeds on design, we spend many hours on each fitment reviewing stress concentrations to improve fatigue life and stiffness. Tiny changes to a radius or fillet can have profound effects on ultimate strength.

From 2006

https://949racing.com/wp-content/upl.../06/wheels.jpg

Load distribution aside, looks are imho better for wheels of less spokes, like 5-6. I guess, it might be the reason, why many more spoke wheels do some design unification of spokes in pairs or split spoke designs