Forgeline Drag Racing Beadlock Wheels Weight Savings

Assuming a 700 HP car and a starting curb weight of 3250 lbs, Porsche (assuming no caveat was provided) would be asserting that the effective gain from dropping 37 lbs of unsprung mass is ~90 HP!

Not so fast!

Maybe 2-3 lbs effective per lb of unsprung (this would be an effective gain of ~20 HP for the 37 lb wheel weight reduction). There is a diminishing return term in there along with reduced impact at speed when acceleration (straight or cornering) is near zero.

There have been many studies on reducing unsprung mass and observing the realized performance gains (track times and dyno results). For a 4-10 lb/corner reduction, it is usually measured in the 0.1’s on a multi-minute lap and a under 10 HP. What is noticeable is the improved feel of the car and its eagerness to turn, accelerate, or decelerate… essentially the car’s response time. We dropped ~15-20% off our wheel+tire mass at each corner and a small improvement to the aforementioned response time was all that was noticed (aside from the improved looks!). There may be other realized performance gains, but we would need more accurate ways of measuring them to find out – to be continued!