Wheel quality comparison

[transalpian]

Greetings again!

 

I'm replacing the wheels on my Birkin and have narrowed it down to three:

 

VTO Classic

Rota RB

Konig Rewind

 

Can anyone share their experiences with any of these choices? Quality? Durability? Weight? Trueness? Anything else?

 

Obviously I'm looking for the MiniLight/Panasport look. Are there others I should consider? I'm going for a black center with a polished rim.

 

Thanks!

[captainawesome]

I don't have any experience with any of the above yet but would be interested in the feedback you receive. I also was looking into the RS Watanabe wheels for my seven, though I understand they may be a bit costly and tough to get.

[TheDingo8MyBaby]

I don't know much about the VTO's, but I do know a little about rotas and the konigs.

 

I have seen some pretty scary failures of rota wheels, but that being said, a 7 is a much lighter vehicle and probably would not see the same loads.

 

The konig rewinds are a decent wheel. I've owned a set of them in the past as was pretty happy with them.

 

You get what you pay for though. I personally think panasports look a lot nicer than the rewinds.

[11Budlite]

I think there's a small fitment issue with using a Rota RB on a Birkin. I don't remember exactly what it is but I think there are some clearance issues with the rear caliper and the wheel spokes. I think they can be used with some minor grinding to the caliper, or with a wheel spacer. I think it was Marine7's Birkin that had the issue and that car was sold to sdaddy out in California. Maybe he can verify my info.

[blubarisax]

While not the cheapest wheels, BBS makes some lovely ones. I got a set from mog-racing.com. They come with dark grey centers and I had the outer rims hardcoat anodized. I also got some Rial wheels from mog-racing.com and they are also a fantastic wheel. The Rials are in my avatar, polished rim with black centers.

[Toyotus 7]

Hmmm. Hope this doesn't appear twice. I've got Konig Rewinds on my car (15X8s @14.5 lbs each), Good wheels and inexpensive. Probably not as nice looking as a mini lite, but passable. My only issue with them on my car, is that they protrude from beneath the clamshell wings slightly, but they fit the back perfectly. You could over come that by carefully selecting the offset or using winder wings or cycle fenders. My understanding is that Rewinds are a discontinued line for Konig, but are readily available on eBay and other sites.

[sevenup]

Wanting a "minilite" type wheel, I recently shopped around quite a bit comparing features and price for wheels for my Stalker. I narrowed my search to VTO, Compmotive, and Team III. I ended up going with VTO primarily because of price. I generally am happy with the VTO's, but there are drawbacks. I needed zero offset wheels and discovered when I got the wheels that VTO achieves more negative offset by simply adding a LOT of material on the rear on the rear of hub in order to drill the holes deeper. A better wheel achieves this by actually MOVING the center of the hub deeper toward the center of the wheel. Sadly, my VTO's weigh about 2 lbs more than the factory S-10 wheels I removed!

I have Konig Rewinds (cheaper than VTO's) on my MG Midget and my MGB GT and I can tell you that these wheels (15 X 7) achieved the zero offset properly by having a VERY narrow mounting hub. I would put the Rewinds on my Stalker but can not get them drilled to the required 5 X 4.75 pcd.

Having said all this, if your vehicle wheel has positive offset requirements, this probably will not be as much of a problem.

Edited September 25, 2013 by sevenup

[MightyMike]

You should really consider a set of Enkei PF01s for your Birkin. I think they look great, they're cheap, and light weight. My 2 cents.

[jlumba81]

Just came across this site for minilite replicas. Looks like they are Rota RB wheels

Edited September 25, 2013 by jlumba81

[Automoda]

Yeah but those cost about as much as real 3-piece Kodiaks. Beautiful wheels though. I am a believer in putting some nice wheels on these cars when you can afford it. On a seven its not money wasted-- It is money wasted on so many cars I see these days though.

[mca]

The Rotas should be adequately strong for almost anything you could do in a Seven, given the relatively light loads compared to other vehicles. I've had 2 sets of the 15" variety of their lighter wheels (RB is heavier due to spoke design) and had no problems on track. The publicized failures I've seen we're instances of dropping a wheel off the edge of the track surface with much heavier cars, i.e. Subaru WRX.

[transalpian]

I guess it's time to chime back in here. First, I appreciate all the input, keep it coming!

 

I'm now doing a cross-walk between the wheels I like and the wheels that will fit my car.

 

I'm currently running 15"x6.5" rims with a 35mm offset (4x100 bolt pattern).

 

My crude skills seem to indicate these wheels will fit as well:

 

15"x6", 28mm offset

15"x7", 40mm offset

 

My current 90%+ tires will fit these too (195/50-15).

 

What pros and cons should I consider when selecting width?

[11Budlite]

I think most standard Birkins are running 15 x 7 wheels with a 30mm offset. If you are not stuck on the Minilite look check out the Enkei RPF01. I'm running them on my Birkin and I'm very pleased. They're more expensive than a lot of the wheels but they are one of the lightest wheels around at under 10lbs in the 15 x 7 size. That is for the 35mm offset wheel so I'm running 5mm spacers to get the 30mm offset.

 

I got mine here: http://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazda-Performance-Part/21-1050.html