Today I began working on my wheel and hub modifications. The plan is to use the 3 X 112 Smart wheels on the car. The main reason being is they are light and cheap. The other main reason is they are virtually the same offset and stock width as the GT6 making it an ideal option for Spitfire and GT6 owners who are looking for a very light weight 15" wheel.
I was looking at Canley Classics as an option for there alloy hubs as they stated they could be supplied as blanks but further investigation with them led me to the conclusion there hubs would not be big enough for a 3 X 112 bolt pattern to be drilled out.
So this leads me to 2 options which are
#1. design and fabricate my own custom hubs to accept the Smart wheels.
#2. design and fabricate hubcentric wheel adapters for the existing hubs so that the Smart wheels can be utilized.
It is my belief it will be much cheaper and faster to go with the second option. So this is the route I am going to pursue first maybe later I will try and tackle the custom hubs.
There is always compromises on these projects and it always amazes me what I initially set out to do and what actually ends up happening
One might ask why go through all the time and effort on this one aspect of the car but I strongly believe that reducing unsprung weight in a vehicle is very important and even more so on a lighter vehicle as Tigon. The rule of thumb is a 6:1 ratio meaning for every pound of unsprung weight you lose it would be like losing 6 pounds of sprung weight. This is a conservative factor as Porche seems to think its more like 7:1
So the little extra time and effort here can pay huge dividends. Since I am in no rush to finish up this project I figure why not take the extra time and get it just the way I want it. In the end I believe I will be more happy with the results and have a highly desired commuter supercar.