Tires on Plastic track explanation

[Electrum]

hi guys...
i'm using Carrera Track and Carrera cars... i'm not crazy about the way the cars with the magnets handle... but if i remove the magnets the cars slide all over the place and so much that they hit the maximum for the guide and then flip out of the slot.
i'm used to 1/24 cars on the large commerical wood tracks, i'm using more of a foam rubber tire on those tracks.

so i see different tire types mentioned for pastic, like urethane etc...
what tire type do the Carrera cars come with?
and maybe someone could please make a quick list of the 'types' of tire and how they are used on plastic tracks?

thanks..

[proxieken]

Hi,

I am not a chemist but can give my observation about Carrera tires. They seem to cure over time, gradually getting harder and losing grip. You can sometimes sand them to give you a temporary boost in performance. However, once they have gotten to a certain point it becomes more and more difficult to race them. My entire collection was useless, except for anything recently purchased.

I switched to Gage Urethane tires. I chose the shore 40 tires. They work well and do not seem to degrade over time, at least not to my notice. A brand new Carrera car, a new release, will outrun the Gage slightly. Let it set on the shelf for 6 months or a couple of years and the Gage tires will run rings around it.

Sanding old Carrera tires creates some odd situations. I had a silver 1/24 Cheetah. Sanding the tires resulted in me leading the first 5 laps of every race. By the end of a 50 lap race I was down 3-6 laps on the field. The drop off was that severe. The Gage tires will give more predictable and consistent grip.

[HomeRacingWorld]

After-market

1. Urethane
2. Silicone

For stock Carrera wheels urethane based tires like Paul Gage is ideal. Most are made to fit that particular wheel and you can sand them to make them as Round and true as possible.

Silicone is very durable but very hard to try and sand. Some do fit the stock plastic wheels pretty well, but in my opinion they are ideal for the aluminum wheels they are designed for.

The best suggestion is for you to order a couple sets of tires for one of your cars and TEST yourself. Tires are inexpensive and you can then make your own determination.

[mattb]

delete

[mattb]

Silicone is the way to go if you can find good fitting tires. Silicone requires a clean track, but the grip is second to none and all those magnet cars can be made to run like real slot cars. They may handle better with some weight, but you can really fix those cars by making those changes.

The guys say you can't mix silicone and urethane on the same track. I haven't tried that. I did get a couple Monogram cars with urethane for newcomers to play with, but those cars were so bad, I decided it was easier to build a correct slot car than to waste time rebuilding the stock Monogram cars.

I run silicone exclusively and it's great on Carrera. I coat protrack sponge with permatex windshield sealer.

Several of the guys race 1/24 Carrera cars, but their solution is to throw away the chassis and replace with with a brass H&R chassis and modern parts.

What's really funny is Carrera and other companies could probably easily make their own silicone tires as an accessory and it would make their cars 40% better right out of the box. I am thankful for what they do and realize the cars are more for rtr guys than for slot car builders. They offer the best track ever for all of us guys that want the flexibility of plastic.

[RichD]

Carrera cars come with rubber tires and those work well if you do not remove the car's traction magnets. Rubber tires often degrade with time, they can turn rock hard or fall apart in a year or two, but properly formulated rubber tires could possibly last for decades. Since most modern 1/32nd cars are intended to be run with traction magnets they will often not have enough grip when those are removed. The grip of rubber tires can be improved by treating them with 3in1 oil or the tire treatment that NSR sells. Even with tire treatment the cars are likely to be hard to drive unless you reduce the track voltage or install less powerful motors. Magnets often mask other problems that a car might have, including out of round wheels and tires and loose bearings.
Once your tires have turned hard I am not aware of any treatment that will restore their grip for more than a short time. If the tires on your cars have turned hard you might be able to buy stock replacements, but tires that have sat on the shelf for a while would be suspect.
If you are lucky there might be silicone or urethane tires made to fit your stock wheels, otherwise you would need to replace the wheels, tires, axle, gears and possibly bearings with aftermarket parts. Replacing all of those parts would be expensive.
Silicone and urethane tires do not degrade with time and they also wear more slowly than rubber tires. Modern silicone tires are especially tough, which makes them more difficult to sand, even if you use a machine. Silicone and urethane tires that are made for aftermarket wheels often come in different ODs. Aftermarket rubber tires are available, but those only fit aftermarket type wheels.
Someone has mentioned that different types of tires do not play well with each other. For a start there is no tire that I am aware of that works well on a very dirty track. Dust sticks to silicone tires and once they have become coated they will lose most of their grip. Dust does not stick to urethane tires, so they are more tolerant of a track that is not perfectly clean. Silicone tires can be quickly cleaned by rolling them on sticky tape, if your track is not absolutely filthy a few cycles of running the cars and cleaning the tires will eventually condition the track surface. Since dust does not stick to urethane tires rolling them on tape has no effect. If you also run silicone tires on your track those can leave a small amount of residue on the track which will coat urethane tires and will have to be washed off. Once again a few cycles of running the cars and washing the tires will usually condition the track. Rubber tires work their best if the track surface is coated with rubber, if you must clean your track do not use anything that will remove the rubber. It has been said that silicone tires will remove the rubber coating from your track, my club normally uses only silicone tires, so I have not been able to confirm that. We have run a number of proxy races where either rubber or urethane tires were mandated and we have run a class from time to time that used urethane tires.
If you intend to hold formal races on your track it might be best to stick with a single type of tire. If you must switch tires it is better to condition the track by running a lot of laps before the actual racing starts.

[SuperSlab]

[RazorJon]

for me it was what tire works on a dirty track, and that's PG tire all the way

[chappyman66]

Two suggestions :

1) Consider painting the track surface as that can improve traction. Common latex paint seems fine based on the club track we race on.

2) Clean the track with a silicone roller before racing. It pulls all the dust up that would gather on the tires and you have better traction longer independent of compound.

Beyond that, +1 for all the other suggestions. Get some tires of each type and try them. We tend to find that truing plastic wheels makes silicone tires functional but YMMV.

[Fitzy]

I have a Carrera Track I wipe it off on race day with a microfiber cloth tires are definitely experimental I found that different compounds work better on certain cars like Carrera Torino's I'll use a PG shore 40, If they are to sticky like a shore 20 they will stick hard in the turns and roll so just a little sliding will get you around quicker and more consistent those Scalextric Camaro's have a low center of gravity the sticker the tire the better they just stick and go but it is all trial and error every car is different I think tuning is the fun part I'll buy 3-4 diff sets of tires to tune a car with Proof is in the lap times

[Electrum]

Great, thanks for all the reply's.
i'll try some of those Paul Gage tires.
And i was planning on painting the plastic, after i've finally decided to quit changing the layout !

thanks again... eric

[CJR]

Drove the tread off the stock tires. Will also look into some PG's.