Hopefully I am posting this in the correct section.
I bought a bead breaker today and decided to double check my wheel size. I noticed that on my older chassis it has 6 inch wheels and my newer chassis had 5 inch wheels. That had me asking myself how much of a difference does this make?
I can imagine that running the same size tires but different wheel diameters choice mean a little difference on how stiff the tire sidewalks can be. Will it make a big enough difference for it to be noticeable?
Vroom Magazine did a back-to-back test on this a couple years ago actually.
If I remember correctly, the 5" tire felt bouncier and the kart wasn’t as stable mid-corner as the 6" wheel. As you would expect.
I believe the 6" wheel was faster too.
Category is spot-on.
5 vs 6 is hotly debated in 4 cycle/lower power applications, with most folks claiming 6" has the upper hand. But since most CIK karts come with 5" there’s debates on what can be run and where. Rock Island being a good example. They switched to 5" only in the 206 classes, there were complaints but ultimately entries went up slightly.
Out of curiosity what tires where they running on the 6 inch rim if you know? In my area 206 tires are either mg or evinco neither have tires for 6 inch rims that I have seen. Thanks.
Hooiser, Vega, Burris, Dunlop and Bridgestone all have 6" variants