Best wheel size and tyres for Blitz

vexedben

New member
Hi,

I have been researching which wheels to put on my buggy. I am very unsure as to what would be the best for my blitz project and what tyres would be best. All mini wheels just seem to be really expensive, any one know where to get these pretty cheaply?

Ben
 

Mini Mad Max

Active member
Well if you think mini wheels are expensive, you'd be shocked at prices for other alloy wheels. Can you give us an idea of what you want for what kinda budget?
 

vexedben

New member
Well I'm thinking quite wide rims like 6-8 inches, would 12 inch be ok or is 13 better?. Will be running it on and offroad hopefully. Don't know if a set of alloys with road tyres and a set of steelies with offroad tyres would be a good plan? I suppose up to £200 maybe. I'm really not sure what they are worth. Sorry for being so hapless at this. It's my first build and any help is greatly appreciated. :)
 

jim600

Member
vexedben":2lvhj0ev said:
Well I'm thinking quite wide rims like 6-8 inches, would 12 inch be ok or is 13 better?. Will be running it on and offroad hopefully. Don't know if a set of alloys with road tyres and a set of steelies with offroad tyres would be a good plan? I suppose up to £200 maybe. I'm really not sure what they are worth. Sorry for being so hapless at this. It's my first build and any help is greatly appreciated. :)

If your running mini hubs then youll need 101.6 pcd in which case weller wheels work well for on/offroad use - available in 6 or 7" wide and 10,12,13 diameter - you should be able to get a full set on ebay for under 100 quid.

If you have quad hubs then utv wheels in 4/110 pcd fitment would be good (need to be rated to enough weight so utv wheels are better than quad.)

Tyres - 12" there are loads of e-marked quad tyres, 22x10x12/22x8/12 are a pretty standard size - again around 100 quid on ebay. Or look for fedima/malatesa/maxsport tyres - all available in 12/13" and they have pretty good mud/offroad tread - check for e-marks/clearance though.

Oh and make sure the offset means they clear the arms/caliper etc.

Based on my experience with picking tyres for my blitz. :)
 

Mini Mad Max

Active member
^Yeah everything a said above. I have mg midget rostyle steel wheels with grasstrack tyres (which all are road legal to reach grasstrack regs) for offroading. I paid about £50 inc postage for a set, although the tyres are about £40 each which is relatively cheap compared to many other tyres.
One thing i will say is that excessively wide wheels and tyres for the road is counterproductive for grip and handling because you are adding about a kilo per wheel of sprung weight for every extra inch wider that you go. Furthermore, because the buggy is so light you do not need wide wheels and tyres for good grip. In fact wide wheels and tyres barely heat up enough to provide optimum grip because the car is so light. I would say anything over 6" wide is excessive and counterproductive.
Just my thoughts :)
Max
 

vexedben

New member
Cheers Jim for your reply. Slowly getting on with my blitz 2 build in between uni and what not. Ok so if I were to go or bigger wheels say the 12 or 13's, which would give me the best drivability on the road or does it not make much of a difference? I'm getting my chassis soon and want to be able to move the buggy around and things you see.

Thanks Jim and max for the advice. This forum really is a gem of so much knowledge. So really look for up to 6 inch wheels. I have 2 12x5 mini lights ATM front the donor car. Should I just stick with these and get another pair?

Cheers

Ben
 

jim600

Member
vexedben":3lzeazha said:
Cheers Jim for your reply. Slowly getting on with my blitz 2 build in between uni and what not. Ok so if I were to go or bigger wheels say the 12 or 13's, which would give me the best drivability on the road or does it not make much of a difference? I'm getting my chassis soon and want to be able to move the buggy around and things you see.

Thanks Jim and max for the advice. This forum really is a gem of so much knowledge. So really look for up to 6 inch wheels. I have 2 12x5 mini lights ATM front the donor car. Should I just stick with these and get another pair?

Cheers

Ben

The bigger wheel width is only really important if you want to run very wide tyres. something like 10-12 wide atv tyres will need a wide rim - as a rule of thumb I was always told that with quad tyres dont go over 3" wider than the rim. So if you had a 7" wide weller on the rear for example - a 12" atv tyre would be too wide (the rear rims on most quad bikes are 10" wide).

You could run 12x8 front atv tyres on your 12x5 minilites (again just make sure they are rated for the right weight and e-marked).

Only problem with 12" wheels is it limits offroad tyres a bit - 13" is a better size for rally/autograss/mud tyres.
 

Buggybloke

Member
Currently, on my 1275cc Mini-engined NCF Blitz2 I'm running 13" Wellers, with 205/60/13's on for all-round use, even though they are a road-type tread, they perform quite well off-road, as long as the gtound isn't wet, or slippery.
I have a set of 12" Hillman Imp steel wheels that I'm going to try with some 155/70/12 grasstrack/mud+snow tyres, (although they may look a bit skinny! :eek:\),

....but just today, I found a supplier of 6ply radial ATV tyres, 25x8x12, and 25x10x12, road legal and E marked for road use, but with a nice chunky off-road/all-terrain tread pattern, at £58 each, I called the supplier and he reckons they'd be more than up to the job of carrying my 650kg Blitz2.
My current tyres are approx 21" overall dia, these ATV ones will be approx 25", so a bit more ground clearance, and slightly taller gearing, but being on 12" wheels, they'll look nice and fat, and add a little bit of 'give' to the hard, rubber-cone mini suspension on the back of my buggy. The supplier tells me that they will go on a standard 5.5J Imp wheel, or I could get the Imp wheels banded to make them 6, 7, 8, or even 10" wide, to get maximum benefit from them, but probably not wise to go wider than 8" on the front as steering effort will increase. I'm thinking 7" wide and fit the 25x8's on the front and back.

My final drive at the moment is a 2.95:1, but I have a 3.44:1 diff and box waiting to be fitted, it'll be interesting to see what difference they'll make to performance. (current max speed on the 205/13's at moment is 95mph*, but won't rev out in top, 1st final drive was a 3.195:1, and I got 100mph*, on 185/60/13's,... I'm guessing it should rev-out in top, and have a slightly higher top speed, with acceleration the same or marginally better due to narrower tyres?

-Incedently, talking of banded steel wheels, I've just had a set of Fiat Seicento 13" steel wheels banded from 5" to 7.5", to go on my mates Fiat-engined KR3, although they still need powder-coating they really are top quality, and were done by a coded/certificated welder, and look as if they were made that way from new, and are guaranteed not to collapse or leak in normal use, ie on a car, so on a buggy weigh 1/2 to 2/3rds the weight of the car should be nigh on indestructable. We are going to fit 185/60/13 Gravel/Forest/Mud+Snow tyres to them, so there may be a little 'stretch' on the sidewalls, but this should only accentuate the 'deep-dish' look even more... as soon as I can, I'll post some pictures up!

(*All speeds were measured using a sat-nav, whilst driving on a private road, officer...)
 
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