jay272

His ebay name is: one_problem_montoya. And no, he's not a friend of a friend.

seaball

iTrader: (9)

yeah,

it's easy to get spoiled at the gate. i guess the sheer volume of racers that we see is not representative of what most other locations do. i have definitely conveyed my thankfulness for our facility to our owners.

regardless of the logistics, i am still trying to find a more cost effective means getting foam on the corners of my car.

currently, i am awaiting the printed results of the lab tests, and some samples and data sheets of the matching material from a supplier. next comes the pricing. all probing may come to a halt at this point, but at least i may have a better idea of the material costs.

hyperformance

don't blame the LHS, he uses a distributor to get parts cause it's easier to do business this way, don't blame the foam maufacturer as they sell the foams cheap to the distubutor. the middleman is the issue. everyone invovled is trying to make $3, 3 poeple involed makes foams go from $10 to $19. i work at a motorcycle/ jetski shop for years, we got everything we need from 3 distributers, this is much easier the dealing direct with 1000's of maunfacturers.

seaball is award your enterprising sprit, but if you want a better deal on tires get your self a business license for a hobbyshop and start calling distributers or foam tire manufaturers. you'll find this will be much simplier than trying to re-invent the RC tire! you could even sell some tires to make a $1 or $2 yourself.

on the BSR tires: they are great tires, uses the same foam as TM i pretty sure. but the new (larger) TM wheels bust easily

lazarus

iTrader: (11)

Give the guys at www.evolutionhobbies.com an email, they have Eligi, Jaco, Kawada and Speedmind foams and drift tires. They are'nt posted on the site but they will help you out if they can.

TurboUrbo

Chris - Great thread! I just stumbled on to it. Obviously we have been talking about it and I think you are on the right track as far as trying to find a better way. You just can't compete with the guys w/ the unlimited amount of tires. Good luck! Why don't you get a big group of guys from the track go in on some foam from BSR and pool the money together and get a discount? The one guy said you could use the rear 1/10th scale foams and make 2pr. out of them. It seems like there are a lot of options, but all of this research costs money and that is what you are trying to save! The only true way to make this work is to find a supplier in Asia, or Hong Kong and start a distributership. This is basically what speedmind has done, but there product is not as good as the other brands. Anyway good job at trying to come up with a solution and I hope you do, this is a very important issue. This is part of the reason why I don't race carpet anymore. With offroad I can use a set of tires for more than half a season!

P.S. Have you talked w/ Bud at all about this, he may be able to help or offer some suggestion. I know he has a line of foam tires for his cars.

Smoking motor..

Or if you guys lobbied roar or your sanctioning body to limit the costs of tyres for the class then that would help. The brca has cost rules on tyres in the uk if you are interested. Check out the www.brca.org

wagnerov

iTrader: (4)

The funny part about all the HK online stores selling the foam tires is that they charge more for U.S. buyers (assuming US $7.50 per pair times HK$7.80 = $HK58.50, you do the rest) than they do for their local customers. On my visit there on business last week, for the fourth time, I bought some Ellegis for HK$100/set of 4. Would have been less if I bought more. Hell, if I were a shop owner over there, I'd get together with other shops and raise prices a little bit to make more money...it would still be cheaper than cost from most U.S. distributors! Keep in mind you can get Enneti foams for pretty cheap in the U.S.

And it's the exchange rate being fixed in China, HK, and Taiwan that's responsible for the "cheap" prices. It's been the same for the past 8 years, I think. HK folks go through distributors just like U.S. shops do. With the U.S. dollar weakening abroad, I doubt tire prices will go down anytime soon.

On another note, seeing silicone tires mentioned reminded me of the old dirt oval days! Glad those are gone. heh

wagnerov

iTrader: (4)

BTW, imposing a price limit on tires is dumb. For instance, they have a retail price limit on stock motors, and all manufacturers do is just have the same retail price for most of their motors and vary the discount to dealers (witness Trinity's standard and pro motors as an example). All it would do is reduce profit for hobby shops even further...

chubbsrugby

THIS IS GREAT!!!!

I LOVE THIS THREAD!!!
As a comrad of seaball I must say,WOW, secound I think that the idea behind this is not to take on the big company's or e local hobby shops, we are all looking for a diffrent answer to the question, Why so much? The answer is close, but time, research, and personal cost are at stake, we are all mosly in he same positions, we love to race we love the hobbie, it costs money! I believe our dedcation to this is the only way to get answers. We must do the work. All I can say for company's is the fact that thery are in business. Business changes they way people once like us look at things.....

mistercrash

iTrader: (5)

Isn't RUBATEX used in the fabrication of wet suits?

Seaball - How's the search going? Did you find anything promising?

Mr Rimer - Anyone who wants an R/C toy has the opportunity to buy it RTR or in kit form and assemble it themselves. Wouldn't it be nice if we, the hardcore racers, had the opportunity to buy sets of foams in "kit" form? I would be happy to get a small slab of foam, big enough for four tires, at a small price and have the opportunity to cut donuts out of it myself, glue them on my rims and true them if this would save me a considerable amount of money over the course of a racing season.
Is this concept ludicrous or would it be possible for a company like yours to distribute small slabs of foam at a low prices for racers who are willing to do some work to save a few bucks.

Just my $0.02 (Take it before I spend it on foams)

seaball

iTrader: (9)

hey mister,

the search has been on halt for a while. march was spent prepping for the roar nats, and i haven't put much thought back into it just yet. a friend of mine basically handed me 150 used touring tires to get some use out of. i should be good till christmas, now.

i last left off being dissappointed by a shipment of foam that i had received from someone that claimed to have a match. they've got extensive labs for testing, but it appears that they passed that up and made some assumptions that were wrong. long story short, i got the samples and they don't even smell the same as what we use. which said to me, that the chemical makeup wasn't even close. not mention the durometer, which actually was close.

i screwed around with some traction compounds, but they wouldn't even react with the foam. i believe it was purely synthetic.

i should resume my quest, but am not committing to it just yet. although, it is summer, and indoor stuff is near dead here. we'll see.

mistercrash

iTrader: (5)

Thanks for the quick response Seaball Now if Mr. Rimer is not to busy, a response from him would be great, espacially if it was positive Maybe I'll PM him.

vadn1

iTrader: (5)

Foam tires can be found a Serpent USA $4.95/ pair. Just got a box of 20+ tires, great for club racing and lots of practice. They have rubber tires for 6.95 / pair. Who says tires are expensive....?

Besercoe

iTrader: (9)

What brand is this, and are they mounted and trued?

vadn1

iTrader: (5)

Ellegi foams and Ellegi rubber mounted and unmounted, I opted for mounted. 26mm width, 64mm ~ 65mm diameter. They seem like they are trued to me..... $10 for a full set, Im not going to complain...


They fit perfect on my T1R.