Foam tire mods and wheel weights

Depending what the goal you have for how you wish your RC to perform is... you may decide to alter your tires by changing how they grip. You can do this a few different ways. One is to cut the foam inside and the other is to add weights inside.

Cutting the foam allows for soft spots to exist on the tire which in turn allows the rubber to grip more of the surface rather than just riding over top of it.

Adding weights to the wheels is the lowest possible location you can add weight to your truck. Why would you do this? To increase your COG (center of gravity). By bringing the weight as close to the ground as possible, you minimize roll overs and you increase traction. This is particularly wanted in crawling over rocks. Not so much so when out trailing. The down side with adding weights to the wheels is that there is now some increased stress on your axles and drive line. You will most likely need to boost up the quality of those if you do this mod.

What you are after should be about this much grip... maybe a hair less than this...

You want to avoid this...

So... pull your tires off your rims (if glued... a whole new article to come on this) and pull the foam out. I cut mine in about a minute per by using a brand new box cutter blade and extended to full length. Do one side, flip and do the other side then cut notches. Up to you how big those notches are... too much and you end up like the bad tire above and roll over a lot. See pictures below of the foams I cut for my new Rock Crushers...

Now put them back in the tires and mount them up. Unless... you are also going to put wheel weights inside which I spoke of above. If so... here are shots of my rims. I first filled the groove in the rim with many passes of heavy gauge steel fencing wire to add weight. I then put electrical tape over top. I figured that would be good enough but later on I decided I want more weight so Purchased several strips of lead weights from the hobby store. You can buy these at some auto motive shops or garages. They are used for balancing tires. I ran one full strip plus 2 onto each wheel. When done, my wheels ended up weighing .55lbs each. A half pound per wheel/tire. Thats a total of an extra 2 lbs on my truck. Good thing I have a steel drive shaft, metal gear servo and a 45 turn motor. The machine would not last long if I didn't. Keep this in mind if you want to do the same thing with your wheels. More weight = more potential problems possibly but it also = better performance if you are set up for it.

One last thing I did was add some cut lead weights to the inside of the back of the wheels. Later on I realized this was far too much weight on the wheel and I have since removed them. Careful with this as you might have the weights clip your steering knuckle. Not all wheels can do this.

Right now there is a bunch of snow outside so I can't get out and do a trial test run but having zipped the rig around the living room for the past 20 minutes... it is looking promising. :)

Have fun and don't be afraid to experiment with your truck. That is most of the fun right there.

Cheers

Scotty
Editor and Chief of this here blog thing. :)

With the new Rock Crushers (1.9) and wheel weights in them.