Spec Foams for Sedans
 

There was a sedan class recently, maybe at NEGS that ran a spec foam tire. Can anybody tell me what tire that was, and if they're available for purchase anywhere?


I realize foam sedan isn't popular anymore, and I'm not looking to revive the class. It's just that sometimes, more frequently lately, our carpet track has the weirdest, most unpredictable traction, and you can waste a whole practice day just trying to get in a good run or two. Spending a whole day chasing setup on a surface whose whole point is to be the same all the time is really burning me out. I just want to drive my car and put in laps, and not have to chase some magical setup change that doesn't exist. I'd rather just throw on tires and enjoy my time at the track. This hobby was supposed to be fun.

-20 friend points!

When you leave the carpet track after a full day of practice feeling suicidal because it looked more like Disney on Ice than RC car racing, well... it's time for desperate measures. :)

HEHE.. I don't exaclty feel sucidal.. But Disney on Ice is every raceday here.. ANd you know that :P

Its funny you mention this! LOL

Was down at Timezone practicing last Thursday and we tossed on a spent set of foams from our good old days of running mod foam. Car was DIALED! Even with a spool up front. They should have been Magenta's but to be honest I didn't even look! Dave put them on to see what would happen. Had to space the front end out allot to clear the knuckle on the 416.

Sure do miss running mod foam... Well not really as my tire bill for a two day race plus practice was almost $200 bones!:rolleyes: But dam was it fun!!!!!

Our track was like that last year. We found a way to give us great traction in 15 minutes!!!!!!

You guys need to spray your track. We use Paragon Traction Action in a spray bottle. Takes a few cans to do the hole track but well worth it!

What carpet is it and what are you using for traction compound???

Adam

It was a Jaco Lilac spec foam with a yellow strip. The tires work pretty well and hold up. RCAmerica is looking into having a foam only race next year.More to come:sneaky::nod:

Thanks Drew

I had the same issue with spacing on my 416. I've got a test set of magentas I'm going to try tomorrow and see if it helps overcome some of the traction issues we've had lately. I just trimmed them down about 3mm so they'll clear for now. Jilles' put together a base foam setup for the 416 a long time ago. You can find it here.

When rubber tire racing is right, like with predictable traction, it's one of the greatest things ever. But man, when it's wrong, it can really be frustrating. I see a lot of our sedan guys giving up locally and just racing pan cars because the grip is predictable, even on the bad days. Maybe a spec, harder, longer-wearing foam tire would be a good change of pace for some of them.

This is what we have done locally here in Denver (CORRC), and it definitely helps. The problem is, we have to spray it every race/practice day in order for this to work, so it can really gum up the carpet. We've got 24/7 access to the track here, so it gets a lot of use during the week. We really can't figure out what the issue is. It existed from day one on brand new carpet. We get a pretty nice groove, but there's no traction in it. The cars will corner well, but there's no forward bite when exiting corners. It's really perplexing. I think we're going to steam clean the carpet and maybe try spraying with Jack (we're a jack only track) instead of traction action.

Dustin (smoke81) has a different issue. They've got 3 racers, and an off-road track in the same building, so they get dirt on the track.

Drew, can those tires be purchased anywhere? I don't think I'm ready to race foam competitively, but I'm glad to see it making a bit of a comeback. I just need my car to grip a little bit so I can keep practicing with this mod. Trying to practice mod on a slippery track sucks!

We have had problems with our carpet as well. It is better with the Traction Action but still not like other tracks. What generation of carpet do you have?

Do the 12th scale guys have problems making 8min?

Yes a harder spec foam tire for TC would be a must for my self to even consider running it again. We had to cut them so small to keep the cars from traction rolling or lifting that they were a 1 run tire. Maybe a few min of practice after that and they were done...

We've got non-HD carpet (from CRC). It's from two different batches, though, where the roll on the straight seems slightly different than the rest. The carpet never really stopped fuzzing. When you look at the roll that's on the straight, you can see there's long clumps of carpet, rolled up and pressed flat, almost like a shag carpet or something. I kinda think there's something wrong with that roll, but it's so much easier to just blame the fact that we've sprayed the track for our trouble that people just go with that. But the problem existed before we ever sprayed.

The pan car guys seem to do okay. If we spray, their tires will gum up and they have trouble making it through a whole run, so we've stopped mostly because of that.

We've also noticed that the problem goes away after the sun has been down a while. We're in a strip mall, so we've got windows lining the entire front of the building, and the sun shines on the track. There could be some correlation with that. The issue does not seem to be affected by temperature or humidity.

Does this effect the carpet in any way, long term ?

We have CRC carpet, about a year and half old, maybe two and I know just how FRUSTRATING it is to chase the track all day long. Suicidal, yea, that's how I feel .....

I guess clubs have been doing this for a few years. Some spray black can Paragon as well. Our club got word about it straight from CRC. Thats what they do every club race on there home track.

As for side effects syndr0me was saying something about it a few posts up. We have only used it two times as our season just started. We will see...

I can't explain why or tell you when, but sometimes when we have sprayed with TA the tires glaze like crazy, mostly the fronts. I have a haunch it has to do with the tires sliding. Not a big deal in 1/12th as we just switch to black fronts and sauce the whole tire (the glaze only builds where you don't sauce), but we never found a solution for the sedans. It can leave a little bit of a greasy black residue on your car, but its not terrible. We cut our TA with acetone, which may be a part of the reason we get the "grime". It definitely improves the traction. With black can you will need more cars to work it onto the groove before the grip comes p. With TA the track hooks up on the second lap. I usually see a half second gain in the first couple laps if I nail my line; the car just carves. After those 2-3 laps the times are still faster than pre-spray but only by 2 to 3 tenths and that traction is there for good. We run on a dusty -shared with an indoor off-road track- carpet track too.

We cut ours 1 part TA to 2 parts acetone. and spray as wide of a groove as the widest car runs. Working it in with foam cars works best. We don't run Jack however, just black can paragon. Our carpet is pre-HD CRC. About 5-7 years old. I can't remember...

Sometimes just for fun I throw on a set of nitro foam tires I have from I have no idea where after I spray just to get a little more weight and surface area working the foam in. I have run the same set a bazillion times and they hardly seem to wear.

Well, I tried foams tonight and it sucked. They glazed over after about 5 laps and the car wasn't drivable after that. Pretty much the same issue I have with rubber, though much worse on the foams. I don't know what that means.

We fought through the glaze tonight and managed to get some decent practice in.

Maybe it's time for an SC10. :)