A question about tires

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A question about tires

Postby Mayberryman » Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:24 am

I race with two 1/32 scale clubs and neither of them allow silicone tires, so my question is about urethane V high performance rubber like Slot It F and N 22 as well as NSR Ultra Grips. I race most of my cars with the Slot It F-22 tires and after treatment with NSR oil or other tire treatments, some with a smell and some not I have never felt at a disadvantage racing against urethane shod cars. Anybody here have views and results based on the differences between these two types of tires. Also has anybody experimented with a product called Track Claw?
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Re: A question about tires

Postby waaytoomuchintothis » Wed Jun 14, 2017 10:49 am

I hate all the "glue" products because I have had to clean an 8-lane 150' track more than once, by myself. If I smell that junk, I leave, and heaven help the guy who brings it to my track.

On routed wood tracks, rubber tires and silicones will "rubber in" the surface, making the track a lot more fun. Urethanes actually clean the rubber off the track until its almost gone, but they hook up just as well or better than silicones even while that cleaning process is going on. For my use, the various tech ratings on urethane make so little difference I just ignore them. I know lots of folks who feel differently regarding the softness ratings, and their experience of the hobby is just as different.
Last edited by waaytoomuchintothis on Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A question about tires

Postby Mayberryman » Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:34 am

Rob, I know exactly how you feel as I was part owner of a commercial slot store and we had a 185' Engleman Track and ran Div. I wing cars on it twice a year. The glue they used took us a day and two gallons of Coleman Fuel to clean the track. What I am talking about is not glue but chemicals that make rubber softer and I allow the tires to dry overnight before racing with them. NSR Oil is sold be several better known online slot car sellers, The other thing I was talking about was the different Trinity rubber conditioners. The Track Claw is a rubber treatment used in Go Kart and stock car short track racing. I understand that Urethane tires are much less maintenance dependent but I do feel the F-22 and NSR Ultra Grips can work better when properly treated.
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Re: A question about tires

Postby RichD » Thu Jun 15, 2017 9:14 am

My club, Shoreline Model Raceways, now races on silicone tires exclusively, however several members of the club have entered a number of proxy series that were restricted to rubber or silicone tires. In addition we have used urethane tires in the past and have hosted many proxy races with rubber or urethane tires.
My own opinion is that a club would be better off if it picked a single type of tire, regardless if that was actually the best performing type, and used that exclusively.
All types of tires will perform their best if they are glued to the wheels and trued using a machine. In this case we are comparing rubber to urethane tires. It is well known that rubber tires work their best on tracks that have been rubbered in. Someone has stated that urethane tires will remove the rubber from the track and rubber tires will loose grip. I have never heard of that being reported before. Silicone tires do have that reputation however. It is my policy to report my personal experiences, I try to avoid posting second hand information.
The softer rubber formulations do tend to have the best grip, but they can be more difficult to true and can wear out rather quickly. In addition there can be batch to batch variations of rubber tires, making it harder to achieve consistent performance. Rubber tires are subject to aging and if they have not been formulated correctly they can get rock hard or turn to goo. The performance of any rubber tire can be improved by a chemical treatment of some sort, I am not aware of any treatment for urethane tires beyond a simple cleaning. One thing that I have observed about urethane tires is that after the have been trued they also need to be polished to get the best results. The tires will eventually get polished by running them on the track, but that takes a long time. I have run in urethane tires on a skid pad made of Ninco track.
I believe that in this case a certain amount of testing would be in order. Work your magic on a pair of rubber tires and a pair of urethane tires and race on what ever is best for you.
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Re: A question about tires

Postby HomeRacingWorld » Thu Jun 15, 2017 9:46 am

Guess it all boils down to your own preferences and of course, the track rules you are to comply with. What works here isn't much help if you have restrictions on blends or the use of chemicals is allowed.

I prefer urethanes and they do not need any "treatment". Simply a cleaning. Or as we like to call it: "Deglazing". I have ran this blend for years as a standard and have not lost any rubber that has been run into our oval. We run foams on our oval on some of the 1/24 cars but never any glue. Standard cleaning using ligher fluid or WD40 is the norm for these foams.

Using 1500 to 2000 grit sandpaper polishes the PG and other urethanes very well. After this, we simply run them and clean.

Cannot see any polishing being accomplished on Ninco's very abrasive surface. That surface simply grinds them away faster. Our old test track did nothing but sand them down before their time and the contact patch was far from a polished appearance.

I have tested many blends over the years and there is always a variance between batches, just not enough to lose sleep over.

Silicone choice is moot since you stated your clubs do not allow them.

Depending on how you race will dictate the blend. The standard PG blend works very well for my oval. The XPG compound seems to work very well on the road course. Urethanes are much easier to work with. I can sand/contour them to fit a wider variety of stock wheels. If you change to aluminum on every car, then this isn't that much of an issue. BUT any tire blend needs to be trued for maximum performance.

I do have to give NSR/ThunderSlot tires a nod. They work very well after a truing and need nothing else but a cleaning like the urethanes. All three of my Thundrslot Lolas have kept the stock tires and don't plan on changing.

As usual, the best way is TEST on your own. Pick a few blends and see which gives you what you are looking for.
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