FTO AUSTRALIA

Do 15" wheels fit over the brakes of a MIVEC version FTO?

the depends on the offset of your 15" (not PCD, as lots of people get mix up with both)

So what is the main problem?
Sometime the wheel can hit the caliper?

I am thinking of Buddy club SF
It's on a lancer and the offset may be something between 38-46???

Will there be much of a performance difference between 15s and 16s? I want the car to accelerate quicker

but lancers have 4 stud wheels, how you gunna attach them ?

Attatch what? The brakes?
They are already on the car. THey are not from an FTO, they are Galant I was told, but identical to FTO brakes. So I just said FTO brakes

Assuming you have tyres which make both sets of wheels have the same rolling diameter, the size of the wheels (if only an inch different) will not make much difference to acceleration times. What will make a difference is how much each wheel weighs. If your 15s weigh less then your 16s, then yes that will make a difference. Unsprung mass is what is important.

And yes I believe that 15" wheels should fit - I used to have similar brakes on my VR-4 and I used to run 15" wheels for drag racing and they fitted OK ... just. Also I believe that the FTO brakes are the same as fitted to the Evo I-III Lancers, and those use 15" wheels standard.

(Incidentally, my 15" drag wheels were 5kg each lighter than my road 17s, which made a big difference in drag racing).

How much of a difference is big?

When I had my 1.8, I swapped wheels with a friend for a week.

I had 205/40/17 (which is what is on now) and he had 205/50/15 and once his wheels were on my car felt heaps quicker. I was actually impressed! I even beat a 3 litre supra non turbo in a drag race! The guy asked me what I was running and his jaw dropped when I said stock! Was so funny.

Anyway, what about the weight of the tyre? It would obviously be heavier in 16" over 15" but would this cancel out the extra weight of the wheel?

I am thinking between 205/50/15 or 205/45/16?

When I say a 5kg difference, that includes the tyres. So the overall wheel/tyre combo were 5kg eack lighter. As for 'how big', on my first race with the 15s, I dropped 0.3sec off my PB, down to a 13.7. The car just got off the line much better, felt like less inertia when launching.

In that situation there was a slight drawback in that I went from 215 to 205 width, which meant less grip. But that was just my particular circumstances.

another consideration is less tred on the ground means less traction on launch

the galant and GPX/GpvR(and evo's for that matter) share brakes....

the magna however has the smaller brakes off a GR

The recent(ish) Magna VR-X and AWD vehicles have the same front brakes as the GPX. How the smaller discs ever worked acceptably on something as heavy as a Magna amazes me...!

- Rich

Is there any sort of conversion for weight on your wheels?

Something like say dropping 1kg from your wheels might be similar to dropped 5 from the cabin? Someone told me this some time ago but can't remember well enough.

Ok, my front brakes look to be around 280-290mm
Rear ones are probably around 250-260mm
I never measured, but can someone give me the exact measurements so when I see my car I can measure? Including disc width?

My rear discs are solid not vented

Spetz everyone with standard brakes has solid rears.

As for lighter wheels the only good thing is just lighter wheels, however as talked about above a smaller wheel may not be as wide and so not as wide a tyre and you may loss out on grip and traction from having less contact patch with the road.