Compomotive wheels on s3???

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welshy_s3

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Is there anyone on here who runs compomotive wheels on their s3's? I'm thinking of them for mine, the mo5's in 17's but can not find any images of them anywhere! If anyone can help out and post an image or two i'll be most greatful :sign_pics:
 
Personally, apart from the OEM 17" Avus rims, 17" looks inadequate on S3's, but that's just my opinion.

I don't recall anyone running Compomotive Mo5's on here, but the pic below is the nearest thing I guess. 18" 1552 Tarmacs.

low.jpg
 
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Well it looks like I may be the first then! :D Haha
 
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I guess it depends on the width and design of the wheel as to whether they look good. 17x9s on mine looks "purposeful" if nothing else.

Compomotive do make some awesome wheels but not sure the MO style design suits the S3 body shape?
 
Compomotive MO NA Mazda Miata 03This is the style I had in mind, just in a very dark anthracite as they'll be going on a dolphin grey car!
 
jojo said:
Post pics when you get them on! Quality wheel I must admit, with a quality price tag to match!
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I've been given an unbeatable price to be honest otherwise I'd happily stick with the standard avus rims :rolleyes: I'll be putting a thread up on the car when it's complete in a few weeks hopefully!
 
Other wheel to consider is the MO6. They have an awesome dish in wider sizes (as I'm sure the 5 do thinking about it?):

DSC00760.jpg


AUDI-MO1890-9X18.jpg
 
I was just about to say MO6 would look sweet in 18 x 9.

Look stunning on the above cars.
 
Nick101 said:
I was just about to say MO6 would look sweet in 18 x 9.

Look stunning on the above cars.
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Haha... Is this Nick Rolfe?? Its Jamie from Neath here Budd :) Hope all is well!! I'll look into the mo6's instead then, its just I have a brand new set of yoko ad08's in 17's which I wouldn't mind using to be honest as I want the car to be a bit of a track slag when complete!
 
I have ad08s, nice tyres. If you're going for 9s you'll want to run 245s but that also means it's a pretty tight fit.

Looks to me like the RS4 in the pics has 17s and the S4 18s. Both are 9 wide I'm sure, based on the inset spokes.
 
They look lovely on the cupra's! Sam is there a lot of clearance running a 17x9 and has it affected the cars handling in anyway??
 
8" may be sufficient for some but I wanted to run wider tyres in preparation for a slight power increase with the new engine. The weight difference in reality is going to be negligible. My new wheels with 245s were a good few kg lighter than the BBS CHs they replaced. Extra agro, not really.

To answer the question about clearance, the rear is a non-issue, the front really depends on your brake setup. I have to run 25mm spacers (ET15) to clear the 6 pots (again, overkill to some...) so am having to get the front wings pulled.

An added benefit with the 9" versions of most rims is, they look better too.

Bill is running 17x9s. Perhaps he doesn't need them either ;)
 
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Yeah? The S3 is also quite a heavy car. I'm sure you've experienced understeer once or twice? Is it really an alien concept that wider tyres mean more grip?
 
Kinda unrelated to the original topic but still relevant. Perhaps have a read of this...
Tyres - Why is wide good? - PistonHeads

The school physics books tell you that the coefficient of friction is a constant, but in reality this is an oversimplification. In the case of tyres, the coefficient of friction drops off as you increase the weight on the wheel. This is why you can tune a car's handling by adjusting the anti-roll bar, and also why you *can't* tune with anti-roll bars if the load on the tyres is too small (the vehicle is overtyred).

Because of this, the bigger the contact patch the more grip you can get. In a drag race, dropping the tyre pressure increases the contact patch area and increases grip. Even on road bikes you will see people dropping the tyre pressure to almost nothing for the absolute maximum grip down the strip.

BUT, when you look at lateral grip (side force) other factors start to matter. The tyre develops side force because of the slip angle between the tyre and the road. This slip angle means the tread is being pulled sideways by the road surface. At the front of the contact patch the deflection is relatively small. As you move back along the contact patch the deflection increases steadily. At some point, the sideways forces in the tyre exceed the friction between the tread and the road and the tread starts to slip relative to the road. When the tread is slipping like this it produces less grip on the road. Now imagine increasing the slip angle and imagine what effect this has on the side force. As the slip angle increases the sideways deflection builds up quicker so the front of the contact patch works harder. But more and more of the back of the contact patch is sliding and losing grip. At some point you reach a maximum point where more slip angle means less side force because you are losing more grip at the rear of the contact patch that you are gaining at the front. This is often referred to as 'breaking away' where you ask the tyre for more grip and end up getting less.

The longer the contact patch is, the more gradually this break away occurs. If you shorten the contact patch, the break away occurs more abruptly but you get more absolute grip at the peak. This is because there is less variation in sideways distortion between the front and back of the contact patch, more of the contact patch reaches maximum grip and starts to slide at the same point. Having a shorter contact patch also means you get less self-aligning torque so there is less feedback through the steering about how close the tyres are to breaking away.

When you fit wider tyres, what you're doing is making the contact patch wider and shorter for the same tyre pressure. This means you get a more abrupt breakaway but more grip right on the limit. The disadvantage is more expensive tyres, more tramlining and steering kickback, more wind and rolling resistance and noise, less grip in slippery conditions, a more abrupt breakaway to catch out the unwary driver and less warning through the steering about how close the tyres are to breaking away.

This probably explains why manufacturers tend to put wide tyres on high performance cars and narrower ones on ordinary family saloons.
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Sam_ said:
Yeah? The S3 is also quite a heavy car. I'm sure you've experienced understeer once or twice? Is it really an alien concept that wider tyres mean more grip?
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Sam, from personal experience out on track, yes, wider tyres gives you more grip, but the S3 has a chassis that's inherent towards understeer. This is why a lot of us spend a lot of time on rear ARB's, lowering the front end a bit more, increasing the front camber etc. to produce more mechanical grip. What the S3 doesn't need, is more grip on the rear, so in an ideal setup, you would want the wider wheels/tyres combo at the front, but stick with the standard 225 tyres on the rear, but we don't like an odd looking car do we? Wider rear tyres increases the turning circle because they have more grip, and you lose front end response as a result. Audi even went with the wider rubber option on the 8P RS3.

Of course this is all a matter of opinion, I've got my car setup almost how I want it for my power levels. Once you go towards big turbo power+, the goal posts are moved, and you have to make sure the chassis can cope with the extra power.
 
I guess the understeer is always going to be an issue regardless of grip levels, it's just at what point you start experiencing it. I run wider front track and have a decent setup (and proper geometry) but still get the understeer in some situations. Much less than on the old suspension though. I can't help thinking I have a too high spring rate on the front. The H&R clubsports are pretty stiff. I've not really researched it much and aim to take it out to an instructor day at one of the local tracks and see how it fairs. I wonder what the difference between the FWD and AWD chassis would be in terms of understeer as I know some of the FWD lot run massive front ARBs which would only make it worse?
 
Nick101 said:
Yep it's me mate! Haha small world :p

The above wheels are another favourite of mine too. Think the MO6 would suit better though.

I'm getting more jealous of this car of yours every day!! Lol
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Haha, feel free to call by if your ever up the Neath way or get bored one night! It's almost there now mate... been doing it for almost two years on and off lol! Hope all is well with you and your bro :sm4:
 
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