Hi guys.
A few of us have been assisting the people that wanted to develop some mini wheels.
Ray Wilkins took up some of the Performance Wheels as he has worked in the wheel industry most of his career.
I'm glad to say the prototype wheels are made and they look fantastic.
The quality of finish and construction is top notch! The price I believe will place it very affordable.
The spoke design has been altered slightly and IMHO the slight pronounced ridge looks the best of that type.
The wheels are designed with both Nb racers and road car guys in mind and pricing will be very reasonable.
Cooper S calipers will just clear without major grinding/mods.
The weight of the wheel is just 2.95kg so is the lightest alloy 5.5 ive weighed and only marginally off a magnesium minilite.
they should be in production and available in the coming months.
regards Ben

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The formula for the length of a piece of string is simple: Twice as long as from one end to the centre!

Interesting! What road legal tyres will go with these? Will they fit under the arches without flares?

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

Will they clear large calipers, such as the 4-pot KAD and the like?

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Cheap, Fast, Reliable. Choose two.

nice!



5.5" - any 165 width



yes...

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

Why not just totally design a new wheel... To me its just another mini-light.

I reckon you should have made a totally new design for something different.

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bubbaclubby, by using a mini light or similar, the historic racers can and do use them.... being period correct looking( and again 5.5 inch is legal in Group Nb). Now a new design may or may not hit the fashion mark and be taken up by the general population, whereas everyone in a 50 year oldish mini knows the mini light look..... so i think it is a wise albeit slightly conservative move to stick to a known thing. Anyone doing their bit to keep minis running well ( and 5.5 inch rims are good for handling) deserves encouragement. Cheers darryl

Good wide wheels with a perfect offset to suit a Mini with no flares are hard to find. Good work!

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Thanks Simon for my newbie questions.

Next newbie question: If using the same 165/70R10 Yokohama AO32R tire (for example) on a 5 inch vs a 5.5 inch wheel, What is the technical difference? As in greater contact patch even though widths are the same?? does the tire sort of bulge out more due to the width of the wheel? Genuine question

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

AFAIK all other things being equal, a wider rim will cause the tyre to distort less when cornering, which means the car should feel sharper with better turn in, an analogy might be similar to if you were to raise your tire pressures a bit a bit less vague... if it were very stretched you might have to run less negative camber to get traction back but I doubt it in this case.
There are disadvantages if you stretch a tyre too much (boy racer style) but with a 165 we are aligning closer to the manufacturers specs.

Other benefits might be the A008s I was looking at were recommended for about a 5.5" tyre(not sure where I found that), which I couldn't get so it better matches the manufacturer specs, if it's going to fit without flares and is 1/2" wider it needs to be offset more towards the centre of the car (positive offset / ET? I always get confused) this gets it closer to centre point steering which is where the centre of the tyre lines up with a line drawn through the top and bottom ball joints... This does good things for handling as if your wheel hits a bump it has less leverage to turn the wheel and therefore try and steer the car, it would also be a large factor (I think) in managing torque steer as differing levels of grip are less likely to try and steer the car.

Please correct or expand if I got any of that wrong.

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

^^^
Alignment through the balljoints to centre of tyre offset is called the scrub radius. Zero is good, however I remember the VW Golf years ago featured `negative scrub radius' as a handling feature.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Hmmm, I wonder if it might have interacted with bumpsteer to cancel each other out; ie the bump creates a bit of toe out and the negative scrub radius tries to pull the wheel back towards the centre. Did you drive one? was it any good?

Alternatively it might have been so oddball to have a negative scrub radius they thought they'd make a marketing feature of it...

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

Assume these are an alternative to the 5.5" wheels Dave Armstrong Motors have had made.

I suppose we could come up with a design and call it a cosmic or mamba I'm sure no one has done them

The gtr xu1 club worked with them had some wheels made , they just turned up
They are 13x7 and 13x9

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WANTED - COOPER S

1973 GTR XU-1

Yes same guys - Wheelboyz- the repro xu1 globes were designed to replicate the rare works wheels on the hdt cars I believe they look awesome.
They are also doing the big hot wires for hatchbacks and Commodores etc.

Yes these could be an alternative to the Armstrong type wheels for the guys wanting to use 5.5's. It was a great initiative of Armstrong Motors to produce a small run of wheels for the nb guys! I haven't had much to do with them but am pretty confident these are lighter and they don't require spacers or caliper grinding etc.

Also the idea of the 5.5 is to control the tyre better during sidewall deflection. I've had countless discussions with fellow racers regarding how much difference half an inch makes. I reckon I can best describe it like this. You can distinctly feel the difference between a 5" wheel and a 6" wheel back to back with the same tyre so a 5.5 is halfway to the superior 6" I feel.
The Hoosier is designed to be fitted to a 5" to 6" rim so a 5 is at the bottom limit of the tyre recommendation.
I can't recall ever having gone through turn one at Eastern Creek without lifting, on 5" rims, so they may only make a difference in a few places but worth it IMO. Plenty of us have spent plenty of money making 5.5's out of multiple wheels, making from scratch etc so I reckon these are a great solution, well priced out of the box and ADR compliant.
Regards Ben

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The formula for the length of a piece of string is simple: Twice as long as from one end to the centre!