Wheels
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Way back when I was planning this build I had decided that I wanted a nice set of wheels on the Striker, as I personally think that the wheels are one of the most important things that influence the end result.
I had decided that I wanted 13" wheels in order to keep the unsprung mass down and the choice of lightweight 13" wheels is good. The benchmark wheel is a 6" superlite, which weighs a claimed 4.5Kg and represents a good value, light wheel without spending lots of money. Next up the pecking order are your 3-piece split rims such as those that Image supply to Westfield (4Kg), the original Caterham SLR wheels (3.7Kg) and Mike Barnby's magnesium ones (3.5Kg) as used on the current R500. I also considered Dymags, but decided that these were too expensive and didn't offer the benefits of a strong aluminium spun rim that could be replaced if necessary.
I also decided that it would be nice to have some ACB10s as they offered perhaps the ultimate in dry grip, with excellent slip characteristics on the limit. They are also 3Kg lighter than an equivalent size Yokohama A032R, which is another 12Kg saved.
A friend of a friend had a Caterham R500, for which he had an additional set of nearly new SLR rims that he used for track days. I think at some point he asked me if I wanted them for my car or (or vice-versa) and I said that I would have them off him should he come to sell them. These wheels were my number one choice for a couple of reasons. 1) I think that the angular nature of the 5 spoke centres suits the Striker well. 2) They were cheap. Anyway the time came when he decided that he wanted shot of the R500 and I got a mail asking if I was still interested, that they now had a new set of ACB10s on them and how did £500 sound. Sold.
I was quite chuffed at this and drove down to the Caterham factory to take them off his car before anyone else did (there was a queue forming). The main reason for going down was that they were R500 sized with 7/21-13 (195/50-13) ACB10 on 6.5" wide front and a massive 8/22-13 (245/45R13) ACB10 on the 8.5" rear. I didn't think I had a chance of fitting this on the back of the Striker, but the offset was ET23 and it seemed worth a try. Luckily Simon Neill was kind enough to let me try them for size on his IRS Striker. To my disbelief the rears went on OK, with a few mm of clearance around the chassis at the back. Only downside was that they protruded out of the rear wheel arches by 30mm. I called Sylva and no they didn't do any wider rear arches, but it was possible to cut them off and re-attach them quite easily. I have now seen Strikers on which this has been done successfully and spoken to Jeremy about how to go about it when visited the factory and would agree that it seems do-able, but I guess time will tell. I have to say that a 8/22 rear would not be my first choice. I would much rather pick a 7/22 on a 6.5" rim, or even use 6" rims all round which would be better suited to the power, torque and weight of the car, despite what Avon say about the sizes and compounds being well matched for a se7en. There are however not as scary as their 245 dimension would have you believe, with most of the width being in the shoulders and not the tread surface. Also, they do look bloody nice and it gave me an excuse to buy the clear gel bodywork, do something neater with the rear lights and number plate and get it sprayed as I think that this is one aspect of the Striker that is more kit-car than it perhaps should be, but then again there are few concessions to practicality and unnecessary detail.