Reply to "17 inch tires"

WOW GUYS.
Seems like theres a "Big Wheel / Tyre" buying - frenzy going on.
Do us all a favour please. Someone out there weigh one of these Campy - cloned 17 x 335/35 tyred items. And any other combination in these sizes. It would be very interesting to All @ Sundry, (whoever they are ...) re the Unsprung Weight Debate....with the well known problems of the poor design of the Pantera's suspension / rear A- arms, etc. ( see Rear Suspension Rebuild posted by SWENDOG.) - I am of the opinon that to bolt MUCH heavier whls. / tys. on an already way out-dated and poor design ( designed in the late 60's for goodness sake ! ) could NOT be a GOOD thing....What are the weights ????? compared say to the org. Campy 15 x 14 as fitted to the GRP4 racers or , if thats not a fair comparison, - then at least the Campy 15 x 13 /345/35's of the GT5's.......
A frightening example of the above was very grafically demonstrated to me a while ago by the engeineer / rolling chassis designer of many Cobra's, GT40's, and now Pantera GRP.4 Replica's made here in little old South Africa: He slid a hyd. jack under the rear of his Replica and told me to watch closely as he slowly lifted the rear. No tyre/whl. movement whatsoever re. the dreaded Scrub - In. etc. - They went straight up in one strt. vertical line. He then did the same to my '76 Pantera and to my horror it lookled like I had swapped a VW Beattle backend in......the whls / tys did a whole 'swing axel' movement going into total postive camber.....frieghtening...Try it. This is why we all are spending masses 0f $$$'s trying to make an antiquated system work, in stead of spending those $'s somewhere else....u can make a Pantera handle wellish, but its a lot of work....and then none of the settings stay set !!!....... No, no, no....thats why we have built these modern, state of the art 'new' Hi-Tec Specials or Replicars..... remote brake fluid resiviors, suspensiom fully adjustable all round with one Allen Key etc ....the lap times around Kyalamy Race trk. of one of theses cars was minutes ( felt like minutes...) quicker than my poor old '76, with comparable power outputs.......
Be careful of weighing up the suspension to much, - heavy whls/tys, bolted-on chunks of iron trying to hold geometery in place....ohh boy...... Guess what the weight of these cars are ? ( ...with PROPER Carbon Fibre body panels...etc...)..u would flip.

Just thought I' pop this in for ur interest...

tai krige
Pantera SA.