pizza pan - dish in or out?
 

Is it generally better to install pizza pan hubcaps dished in or out, or what does it depend on? Thanks

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...-liter-car.jpg

These guys know what they are doing.

thanks
 

the pic says it all I guess

Careful though. Whats your wheel offset like? (tire to fender line-up?)

wheel offset
 

It's a 1996 S10 pickup.
The outer rim of the wheel is about 2" in from the fender, as viewed from the top, less if viewed from the side, as the vehicle body tapers in as we descend. I hope I have understood "offset" correctly.

With the dish in, the air only has to go over half a ridge, and it winds up about level with the tire sidewall. That will be closer to optimum.

inny/outy ?
 

We'll have to make sure we're all defining "dish in" and "dish out" in the same way. When I say "dished in", I mean the center portion of the pizza pan is lower, or nearer to the hub of the wheel. When I say "dished out", I mean one is looking at what would be the bottom of the pizza pan (when it is installed on the whee). The center of the pan/hub-cap is further away from the hub of the wheel, like on the photo of the car a few posts ago. Have I got the terms right, or backwards? And are we all on the same page?

source for pizza pans
 

I just bought 4 16" aluminum pizza pans from Russell Foods in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, in case anyone is looking. They were about $6 a piece. They also had 15" and a size around 12 or 13".

My thought was this: If your wheels/tires sit well inside the fender, then it makes more sense to have the dish out. This is the case with the VW above. This way you are keeping closer to a flush wheel and fender situation. However if your wheels/tires extended past the outer edge of the fender at all, dished IN would definitely be better, so that you are not adding any more frontal area.

Sounds like you should probably dish em outwards.

Deez, you don't know that.

Hi,

For my car, it definitely is dish out. I would think that flat or convex would be the best choices, and never concave...

It appears we have semantic problems here.

"Dish in" could mean the concave part of the pan is pointing towards vehicle centerline, and it could mean the concave part of the pan is pointing outwards, if one is referring to it when assembled to the wheel.

I think either one could be viewed as equally correct.

So I'd go with "concave" or "convex" as installed, to describe it.

IMHO, "concave" is never the way to go for wheel aero.

Frank, that was my opinion, not fact. My point was that you don't want to add frontal area by adding a big outward bulge to your wheels if they already sit at or outside the fenders. I agree that the convex shape is inherently better for aero on a wheel itself.

Furthermore, we are talking about these things like they have a smooth curvature to them. But I'm willing to bet these pans just have a harsh step on the rim like every other pizza pan. So you either have a flat wheel cover that sits a 1/2" outside the rim lip or a 1/2" inside. Is the small region of turbulence caused from placing them inwards worse than the added frontal area of placing the pan convex?

Anyone with pans care to A-B-A test?

My thought is, whichever gives the smoothest profile over the tire itself. I would line it up so that it's flush with the plane created by the outermost bulge of tire rubber. This would make me think that mounting it "convex" (bulging out away from the car) would be best in most situations, unless it's a very deep pizza pan, or a very narrow tire that doesn't really go past the edges of the rims. (I would try to avoid a deep pizza pan anyway)

Just my two cents, I'm by no means an aero expert.