Originally Posted by Smoothride

rominl,

You are about 1/2 right. As far as unsprung weight goes, it doesen't matter where the greatest part of the mass of the wheel/tire combo is. For unsprung weight, 50lbs is 50lbs. BUT, for acceleration, the distribution of the mass does matter. Acceleration will be affected by mass distribution. Since you are accelerating the wheel in a rotational direction, one would want the mass as close to the center of the wheel as possible for best acceleration.

Originally Posted by howiedoit

thanks for the physics review. it's like the example of the ice-skater who brings in his/her arms to spin faster. who says physics isn't fun and interesting?

Originally Posted by rominl

hahhaa man, now we are going into real physics it's something similar, but not exactly. in eye skating, the bring the arm out and spin to create more rotational force. then they pull their arms together, by law of physics (conserve of energy?), the mass are now in the middle so the rotational speed becomes very high