Tire Testing

[Raudi1]

This past weekend we had opportunity to do some tire testing with masking tape vs vinyl electrical tape, and our conclusion is same as reported by others. Masking offers significant traction improvement to point where a vinyl shod car cannot keep up.

Next we added masking to fronts of one car and again there was enough improvement to point where it was difficult for a rear taped only car to keep up. Indeed the cars tended to "push" off the wire when pressing to keep up, indicative of a lack of front end grip.

One of our big concerns was loosing the ability to do a "180 snap spin" when the car is headed in the opposite direction. We were pleased to observe this was not the case.

Kuipo was able to locate an online source of 1/2" black masking which should help avoid the tedious task of inking the tape and allow for quicker retreading. Hopefully it has the same tractive ability. If not we will let you know.

[WesR]

We too have obtained some black masking tape and tonight
had 3 cars racing with excellent results. Only tape on the
rear though, not sure of the point of tapeing the fronts.
One thing for sure, it is vital to have a simple, cheap,
standardised tyre finish on all cars and at the moment
masking tape looks favourite.

[Kuipo]

Yes, we found some on amazon. I'll give a link if anyone's interested, but don't want to seem like I'm advertising for some specific brand or anything.

Regarding the taping of the front tires... Electrical tape didn't make much of a difference over just the plastic in terms of handling, so taping the front didn't make a whole lot of sense. Once we had put masking tape on the back tires though, the cars seemed as if you had added 100 horse power to them, but had not made any modifications to handling. They pushed off in most of the corners or you would have to break really early to get them to slow down enough to make the corner.

Keep in mind that unlike slotcars, the front of these cars is not 'attached' to the wire. The wire just tells the wheels which direction to turn (and arguably pulls a bit, but not like a slot does). So it felt like bringing a race car to the track with slicks on the rear and street tires on the front. The car would washout all the time in the corners. Putting masking tape on the front tires as well made the car handle in a much more "balanced" feel. It also reduced a bit of the "torque steer" that happens when accelerating hard. You can't just floor it (which is good, there's some skill that should be involved in accelerating) but the car felt much more like it had slicks on it instead of different tires front to rear.

We agreed with Wes though that this is the absolute maximum traction that we think the cars should have. Any more and much of the challenge involved in reacting to how the car is steering would go out the window.

I was curious, is anyone else running with tape on the front tires too?

[Kuipo]

Additional: One upside to "drawing" the black on the tires is that we now have a few tire marks in some of the slower corners and leading out of the last corner before the straight where everyone gives the cars a lot of gas. heh

[Double Naught]

I have been experimenting with the rubber tires. Just as Kuipo mentioned I found the cars had a tendency to under steer off the corner even if the steering magnet was adjusted. By putting rubber on the front tires the balance was much better. The comment from other drivers was that the steering was more positive at higher speeds.

Paul

[Joel, LeNoir]

Paul, what tires are you using? I have been casting tires in different hardness and so far still to soft. Way to much grip.

[Lasp]

When I trye the finger tip of Latex gloowes it was OK. But the color was not!
So I found Balons, black ones, and get tree or four tires out of each balon!

[Double Naught]

Grease monkey gloves, they are nitrile and made in Canada. They are like a thick balloon like Lasp is describing (Thanks again Lasp for the idea). I know that is a Gorilla on the box not a monkey, but they work well. One glove makes a number of tires, I have been cutting a small ring from a finger and contact cementing them on to the tire(front and rear). They seem to be lasting well and give good traction on the off camber corners and steep inclines I have been experimenting with. I'm still not completely sold on the idea, but from the feed back I am getting the local guys they are the most fun yet. The cars will still spin if pushed but far fewer spins with novice drivers and at higher speeds. If you can't find any and you would like to try a couple PM me with your address.

Hope this helps,

Paul