The wheels make a difference on any vehicle and is usually one of the easiest (if not always the cheapest) modification to make. Go on any online portal such as eBay, Demon Tweeks, Google, etc, etc to find a whole raft of possible wheels that will fit the stud pattern of the particular car manufacturer you own. Well you may not be surprised that the Renault Twizy is different. There is quite probably a very good reason for having only 3 studs holding the wheel on, but i can’t really think of one other than it saves the weight of one nut, thus reducing the kinetic energy required for the low powered EV to move and stop along with the cost of one whole stud!
Anyways, I totally get the physics of narrower wheels mean less contact thus reducing friction / drag and as a result increase the range the battery can propel the car. However the Twizy wheels are ridiculously narrow, and this I feel is the one reason that it gets a bad perception from people that can’t handle concepts that fall beyond the norm. For sure there are people that look, stare and point because they think it looks cool in its standard guise, but for all those that stand on the side of the fence that are not quite sure about the Twizy, the wide wheels will be the deciding factor.
So my decision was made that by hook or by crook I was going to put the Burrows touch on the EV. The F1 twizy was inspiration in part, but I had seen other people in the very limited Twizy circle had done some modifications with the wheels. However, the only real route I could go down due to the unique stud pattern was to take the standard steel wheel and have it banded. It’s a process where one side of the rim is cut from the other, they are moved apart the required distance, and a band of metal is welded back in to increase the width. This all sounds very dodgy, but its legal and surprisingly safe.
So i found a chap on a forum that was willing to sell me his old wheels due to the fact he had replaced them with the Twizy stock alloy (equally as narrow as the steel). I sent him the funds and asked him to send the wheels to the banding fabrication company. I liaised with the fabricators (ALONZE CUSTOM FABRICATION –
http://www.alonzecustom.co.uk/steel-wheel-banding.php ) about the width of the band i wanted inserting, and within two weeks I had a re-worked set of wheels
The decision was that the rears were going to be different widths. 8 inches at the rear, and 7 front and I was really happy with them when they were returned from the fabricators. The next stage was to have them powder coated. As can be seen by the photo above, there was plenty of bare metal that would would start to oxidise and rust if it got damp, so I made every effort to keep them in a dry environment until they were painted. I decided on a mid grey for the colour. The reason being I didn’t want silver as it was pretty common, I didn’t want black or the similar anthracite as I felt the wheel rim needed to be a different colour to the tyre to separate them.
As you can imagine making a bespoke set of wheels leads you into the territory where you need to get a set of tyres that compliments the wheels and the vehicle they are going to go on. The wrong tyre will have a negative effect on the motors power to get vehicle up to speed, and also an incorrect reading on the speedometer. All of this taken into account I could only source one tyre that would fit both pairs of rims with a rolling radius that would keep the Twizy operating as it should. These were the
Rear: Nankang Ultra Sport NS-2 195/60 R13
Front: Nankang Ultra Sport NS-2 175/60 R13
The cheapest website i could find for the above was 123Tyres at £168 for the full set
After a trip to the local tyre garage the rubber was fitted to the rims. I got the impression it was a little more protracted than usual due to the slightly stretched profile of the tyre on the wheel, but the overall package turned out to be really pleasing .
I was a little concerned that the rim would protrude the rubber with the width I had chosen, but its not. Which is good as far as dinging the rim. I have seen many VW golfs etc with massively over sized wheels and tyres that are stretch ludicrously.
So the next thing was to fit the wheels. I was going to hold off this process due to the fact the mudguards / fenders would need to be removed to accommodate the wheels, which would effectively render the car undrivable during wet weather. However, the temptation got the better of me and I decided to make the change despite this. I’m sure I will regret this in the not too distant future, but at least it will encourage me to get a solution sorted sooner rather than later for a mudguard.
Before I fitted the wheels I couldn’t help but spend a little time cleaning up the running gear and brakes. The front calipers were removed and painted. After a good wire brush down I painted them red. I always find that two coats of hammerite is enough to eat into any corrosion and provide lasting protection for every vehicle i have renovated in the past. This would be no different.
The same was done for the rear, although i decided against painting the calipers as they were in remarkably good condition. I still greased up the handbrake cable and added a small amount of hammerite silver to any rust visible.
As you can see from the image below, its transformed the stature of the vehicle and its stance is much more aggressive. The one thing that lets the Twizy down and turns peoples inquisitivity to err on the side of dislike rather than like, is the puny wheels giving it more of a mobility scooter look than fully fledged road going vehicle.
I will say at this point that I am under no illusion that this modification will have a big impact on performance and range. From a performance point of view I have a solution. I will be fitting a device called a PowerBox (More on this in a future post). This will plug into the ODBC port and will override the Renault restrictions in terms of the power output and speed, effectively doubling the performance. There will be a range reduction but that’s something I am going to have to accept.
This vehicle for me is for primarily for excitement, as has been all of my previous vehicle. It’s a bit odd, but I hope that this will prove there is a new generation of vehicles that can put a smile on peoples faces, much like the Vespa, Lambretta and bubble cars did all those years ago.
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