Wheel options in 90's BTCC style

"kanadanmajava1" (kanadanmajava1) 07/28/2016 at 04:06 • Filed to: None

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My (street legal) BTCC replica Vectra A isn’t progressing very well. I cannot build the new suspension before I’ll have the final tire and wheel sized fixed. Currently the car isn’t much more than a normal Vectra A with everything unnecessary removed. There are mounting foots for the cage, the fuel system has a secondary tank with a separate pump and the wheel arches have been slightly enlarged.

The original BTCC racers were actually Vauxhall Cavaliers as the British market was Vauxhall’s territory but the difference isn’t much more than the badges and the location of the steering wheel. They mostly used four different wheel styles.

BBS wheels with weird offset.

5-spoke Dymag wheels

8-spoke Dymag

OZ turbine wheels

The 8-spoke Dymags was used later than the others and they are 19" while the others are 18". The shape of the 8-spoke Dymag seems to pretty unique and I haven’t found anything that might resemble them even slightly.

I’m not building an identical replica so the BTCC cars will be resembling my car with certain things but there will be differences. I can use BTCC level ground clearance during the track days but I will have to lift it up for the street use. The appearance will likely be close to the second and the last picture as the car is already using the same style bumpers and lights. The others are from the later years with more radical aerodynamics and face lifted body.

I don’t want to get center lock racing wheels or magnesium wheels as they would be annoying to use in a street car. The wheels have to available as new or otherwise I might be in trouble if I bend one from a rare set of four wheels.

Due larger brakes the minimum diameter wheels size wheel be 17". After going through the wheel and tire options I decided that 8x18" wheels with 225/40R18 tires to be the absolute maximum. I know that these will fit the original wheel wells if the wheel has an ET of 45 mm.

As my wheel hubs come from the V6 model the bolt pattern will be 5x110 mm. An adapter for different pattern is possible (semi legal) but it will still limit the possible patterns to 5 bolts.

Currently I’m favoring the turbine style. I have three wheel model candidates.

Rona R50 Aero 8x18"

It has a variant that is ball polished but for some reason it isn’t available in the desired bolt pattern even though it is identical wheel except the surface finish.

Bola B12 8x18" (which looks pretty much identical with the OZ wheel)

Schmidt TH-line 17" (in the picture but 18" also available)

Ronal and Bola wheels are quite cheap (€200/wheel) but Schmidt wheel costs more than double the amount. And the 18" version would even cost nearly double what the 17" does. Their good point would be that the 17" version a separate outer lip and the 18" would also have separate inner lip. These lips are made of stainless steel so you could keep these looking good for decades.

Not any of these are proper racing wheels so they are likely very heavy. At some point I did find the weight for a TH-Line wheel but I only remember that it wasn’t light but not the worst either.

Bola B12 is currently my favorite choice. But I’m not completely locked up for the turbine style yet. For an example Bola also offers one 5-spoke (B10) wheels that I kinda like.

Any other ideas? Many others are available too but 99.9% of the aluminum wheels look extremely ugly and I’m very picky if I really need to buy a new set of wheels.

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 04:26

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The Ronal wheels aren’t too shabby looking, I see them occasionally.

TA4K > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 04:32

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Just say bugger it, do a Porsche or other companies centerlock hub swap and get a set or 2 of those wheels modified for centerlock use ;) Totally not a stupidly expensive thing to do for almost no benefit apart from looking awesome..

Out, but with a W - has found the answer > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 04:47

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Check Team Dynamics Pro-Race 3 for a similar 5-spoke. You can get them in custom offset and PCD. They’ve also got special prep if you’re aiming to take them on track, with custom center bore (so you don’t need centering rings) and metal inserts in the bolt holes to withstand damage from regular wheel swaps.

http://www.driftshop.fr/jante-team-dyn… (website in French, they also come in black, matte black and grey)

Tareim - V8 powered > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 04:54

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How about Team Dynamics Pro Race 3 to have a similar style to the 5 spoke dymags

Birddog > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 04:54

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If you’re going tribute style only Turbines are the way to go. Are you planning on actually racing? If so, Spec is the way to go.

Sovereign, Purveyor of Coupes > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 05:16

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All your wheel choices are acceptable, maybe even exceptional. But let’s talk about this cage. This isn’t a bolt in is it?

KnowsAboutCars > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 06:39

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One vote for Bola. Ronals could also look nice if you got them powder coated white.

Also are dead set on BTCC replica? I think the 1994 JTCC HKS livery would look nice too (complete with the totally street legal green tinted headlights of course).

kanadanmajava1 > Birddog 07/28/2016 at 07:33

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I’m planning to build it so that it could following the rules for one or two potential series. Currently I couldn’t afford to race seriously.

kanadanmajava1 > Sovereign, Purveyor of Coupes 07/28/2016 at 07:40

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I’m to build it so that the cage would follow (quite up to date) FIA rules. Certain amount of removable joints is allowed. Good point for this is that I can properly finish all the seams when the cage is out of the car. I’m pretty sure that I have figured out how to place the removable joints so that cage can be removed from the car after pieces have been tacked together.

kanadanmajava1 > KnowsAboutCars 07/28/2016 at 07:46

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I painted (the most my) car black as I was thinking about of using this livery. I’m not entirely sure about covering the lights in green though.

But is there any other HKS parts besides spark plugs and air filters that I could actually put in to the car?

Sovereign, Purveyor of Coupes > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 07:46

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Hmmm. Sounds interesting. Have to say I’m not up to date on fia rules.

kanadanmajava1 > Tareim - V8 powered 07/28/2016 at 07:50

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These look nice too and they do resemble Dymag a lot. Not probably a coincidence. Weird that I missed these even though I was checking their selection in yesterday. Their largest seem be 7x17" so between these and Bola/Ronal turbines the size would make the final decision.

kanadanmajava1 > TA4K 07/28/2016 at 08:33

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Using centerlock wheels would be tempting if suitable stash of nice wheels would pop up. Using just Porsche front wheels might work but all of their original wheels seem to 19" in diameter.

But contemporary wheels in mot race series’ look way too modern for a Vectra A. And now people have been digging up and restoring old BTCC racers (vintage race series exists already) which will make it harder to find any good and cheap stashes.

KnowsAboutCars > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 08:35

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Turbo, if you decide to turbocharge it.

kanadanmajava1 > KnowsAboutCars 07/28/2016 at 08:41

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I wasn’t planning that but it could still work.

kanadanmajava1 > Sovereign, Purveyor of Coupes 07/28/2016 at 09:26

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Hers’ a really short version of the FIA cage rules. It has to be made of seamless high strength cold formed pipe. The basic structure has to be one of these:

It has be strengthened with one of these diagonal member choices:

Doorbars have to one of these:

The removable joints for the compulsory members have to be done using the ones that are marked with a green rectangle. The others are only permitted for optional members. In the roof level there can be only four removable members.

There are of course a lot of details about the structure and a lot of optional members but here are the most essential parts of the FIA cage rules. This was for a car homologated before 2002 and the list of compulsory members gets longer if the car is newer.

Sovereign, Purveyor of Coupes > kanadanmajava1 07/28/2016 at 14:24

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Good info. This sounds much less like what I think of when I think of bolt in cage.

Gotslicks > kanadanmajava1 11/12/2016 at 19:27

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I have a set of 4 bolt dymag 8 off a old ford race car. Email me if you want. Gotslicks@yahoo.com