No good on a Mustang IMO.

 

i think it would look good on a volkswagen or an audi.

 

there was a red stang on the cover of Modified Mustangsmagazine who had those on it and it looked damn nice
there are other wheels out there but if you like them i say go for it i like them alot

 

A wider wheel reduces traction and horsepower on public roads, this is a fact. Wider wheels only increase traction at the track and even then they still reduce horsepower significantly.

A wider wheel reduces horsepower significantly, look at the Prius, it's a car built around putting it's power to the ground in the best way possible, and it's tires are as skinny as anything. This reduces drive train loss, and increases HP. honestly.. you might as well put your e-brake on if you are going to go with wide tires.

A wider wheel also reduces traction for three reasons, only two of which are present on a public road. The first universal reason is that you are reducing the down force, your car will weigh a certain amount and that amount is divided more and more between a wider surface area, so each segment of the surface will therefore have less weight being put on it, and therefore give you less traction per square inch. On the track you gain more traction than you lose in this equation and you only have to deal with an HP loss, but this is the only case which this will happen in this favorable way. In fact the only way to increase traction on a normal road is to go with 4 wheel drive and add rubber surface area over your front down force in addition to your rear.

The second reason traction will be reduced and the big reason why you will lose more traction than you gain when using wider tires on a public road, is caused by downforce again. Public roads are universally covered in small particulate and you only have traction when those small particles are pressed down with a certain amount of pressure per square inch, this is a threshold you want to be close to but not be under to put down maximum power. Naturally being on either side of the treshold of downforce will reduce traction but the reason why it is best to be over it is because you will also increase HP if you rear towards that end. Naturally most manufacturers don't get that close to the threshold and stay well above it both, because conditions varry and they don't want you to preform worse whe you are not running WOT on a very poor road with sand or the likewhere you could skit out and because they would rather have you break tracton on a launch than reduce gas mielage.

The mustang is not like this however, and is already set up plenty close to the limit and has a huge amount of bias from rough road handeling to preformance. If you try to get closer to this down force per square inch limit, you will probably go past it, and those small particles will turn into ball bearings under your wheels.. you will easily lose rather than gain traction, but wait there is even more reason to stick with a skinnier tire..

The third reason why traction will be reduced with a wider tire is that a skinny tire will "plow" those small particles away similar to how it plows away rain or snow (the latest tirerack article covered this pheomenon and how skinnier tires do it better). therefore if anything a skinny tire creates more traction on non prepared surfaces than even the above two reasons would dictate.

By going with a wider tire you will increase your maximum possible traction sure, or do better at the track, but in the majority of stop lights it will cost you time rather than give you it.. all it will do is redue HP and make you ride more on the edge, you would be better off with a skinny tire and rim, espetially with summer tires.

 

Legion5,

Nice post...But what about cornering ability? Don't wider tires corner better than skinny ones though?

 

Thanks for the insight Legion....I guess I had always been under the assumption that wider tires were always better. Though, I can definitely see how they might be better for handling, but i was also under the assumption that they were better for HP.

Also, Boss has a 5-spoke that I really liked as well.

http://www.bossmotorsports.com/custo...els.cfm?id=333

I guess I really like the Saleen 7-spoke rims the best, but they're only made in 20's, and I don't want 20's. So, I wanted something with a similar look, and the Boss 6 spoke was the closest that I've found.

 

I personally like them a lot! I think they would be sweet on the Mustang.

Let us kow what you decide.......s ~

 

Wider wheels do not reduce "downforce". The Force of Friction is what gives you grip. The formula for this is Force Normal x coefficient of friction. The cof is due to the rubber compound (how sticky it is, how it flexes etc). Force normal is the "weight" the care exerts downward at each tire. As you can see, nowhere in this formula does surface area (contact patch) exist. Surface area only changes pressure, which decreases with area. Since the pressure decreases, but the area increases, the force remains the same.
A tire has maximum grip at a certain operating temp. When this temp is exceeded, the cof drops rapidly, and therefore grips drops rapidly. Wider tires have more mass (more rubber), and more surface area. The mass means it takes more energy (heat........thermodynamics boys and girls) to raise the temp of the tire a degree. The increases surface area means the tire transfers this heat faster to the surrounding area, also preventing heat buildup. This means a wider tire will retain maximum grip longer then a thinner tire.

 

Oh, and I like those wheels.

 

I will agree, that a skinnier tire does "plow" debris and water out from under the tire. The other main thing to consider is tire compound. Many compounds have poor cof at low temps, and if you are using a wider tire, you may never ever reach operating temp at street speeds. A narrow tire will help you build more temp in this case, and increase cof. OR, a compound with a lower operating temp would work as well.

Trust me when I say my ultra high performance summer tires turn into hockey pucks when its cold out.