foams from the ausmicro shop (little review……)

[ph2t]

Been playing around with foams lately. For inside driving on my wooden floorboards all the different rubber treads I ve tried have had limited success.

Unless the floorboards are 110% clean, dust builds up and eventually I m spinning and sliding everywhere.

I tried out the mini-z GPM foams, wide set. These worked well on the wooden floorboards. They managed to maintain some level of grip even after building up some dust on their surface. I was happy.

I took them out onto the concrete. The grip was great but they shreaded in like 5 minutes. So the GPM foams were out. Even though they provided ok grip inside, they re no good for concrete and just a little soft for my liking.

I then tried out the following foams by Italian manufacturer Gandini Racing Products…..

11mm for the rear:

http://shop.ausmicro.net/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=15&products_id=34

8.5mm for the front:

http://shop.ausmicro.net/product_info.php?cPath=21_27&products_id=32

All I can say is…….WOW! These foams seriously kick butt! I ve got the hard compound ones yet they re still sticky as. Inside on my wooden floorboards turns at 60% – 70% throttle (stock motor, 6t pinion, mr02-mm) stuck to the ground!!! I couldn t believe this!

I m so happy now that I ve found some really good foams. For high speed use I reakon they will rock. These foams come pre-stuck to some chromed, plastic rims. The rims are nothing to shout out about but even if I glued my own foams to the rims of my choice I doubt I d get as good a glue join as these babies.

Pros: light, sticky and strong. withstood several minutes of concrete punishment and are still looking great! Also, given the strength of the glue join, I can t wait to get these rims going at some major speeds.

Cons: comes pre stuck to cheap looking chromed rims. If you want to put foams on your own rims of choice then I d stay clear of these. Even though I hadn t done it, I d say trying to remove the foams from their pre-stuck rims would probably trash them in the process.

I haven t tried the ones from the MZR shop, I m keen to get peoples feedback on them though, see how they compare. These are the only other foams thet I m aware of.

Can t wait to try these treads out at the next templestowe meet!

cheers,

ph2t.

[mocky]

i would love some foamies to, since my house is entirely floorboards upstairs and tiles downstairs and the concrete area at the back is dusty as hell, every surface im on is dusty and i get nearly no grip at all. i would like some foams but i just dont like the wheels that come with the ones at ausmirco shop. hey aaron in the future will foam tyres become available without being prestuck? they could just use double sided tape, but they prefer glue/

[Aaron]

At the moment they won’t be coming any other way except the way they do now.

I’m trying to source a wider range of foams but at the moment we’re very very limited.

A.

--
Site Owner Guy.

[bithed]

…foams ? Ok…A load of foams…

[takata]

Hey ph2t
i have a custom tyre that i think may grip very very well in dusty smooth conditions, as i work as a laser printer technician in brissy i get to see a shit load of different printers.

There is a certain printer who’s feed tyres have the exactly the same inner diameter as the stock rims of a mini z, (if not a half a mill smaller), which is perfect to strech the tyre over the rim
so there is no need to glue.

These feed tyres are designed by HP to be such a soft compisite rubber to maintain grip all the time, and to grip what? Thats right D U S T Y paper and there is nothing else harder for a printer to do then trying to pickup dusty/dirty paper.

The feed tyres outer diameter does fit under the several bodies that i have tried and will need minimal trimming of the shell, but don’t be discouraged as i too have purchased the GPM tyres from ausmicro shop which also needed body modification.

As the feed tyres are standard at approx 40mm there is some cutting that is involved to get them to the size to fit on to the rim, but this not a bad thing as it allows me to customize the width of the tyres to the rim. I have also made the tyres a little wider on the nsx rims (14mm)which means you can have a tyre that is wider than any other premanufactured tyre, i melted the over hanging inner edge of the tyre causing there to be a cambered effect which gives even more handling ability to the tyres. I have used them on a netball court surface and get no wear or damage to the edge of the tyre but as have not been able to fit my x speed motor yet, so i have not been able to test these in a high powered mini z application yet.

Only cons that i know of are, the tyres are of such a soft compound over stretching will tear them and that the colour is grey not black
but i am sure that won’t matter to much something different at a track meet is always a good thing.

Ph2t you are the guinea pig here if you would like to test these for me please send a post and we will sort out what to do from there.
These work perfectly on my own old vinyl flooring which is ok to drive on with the gandini foamies, (ONLY OK), and is impossible with standard kyosho tyres so i have faith that these will work for all of you that have dusty floor boards that you want to tame with your mini z.

If i think of anything else about these tyres i will edit this post, let me know.

Takata

Edited by – takata on 23 January 2005 18:27:45

[mocky]

ooooooo, can i be kamikaze test pilot number two? lolz. interested on wat result they will bring.

i have floor boards and tiles and its nearly impossible to get some decent grip and i couldnt be bothered to go out and get some foams or soft rubber tires
so wat did i do?
got my rear tyres dip em in turps for 25 minutes, take em out wash em off with some detergent. then get a lil bowl of water put my tires in em put a lid on top microwave em for 5 minutes and i can honestly say they’re much softer than wat they were originally. lolz and they’re not as tight as stock tyres since the turps stretch it out a bit. but still enough for a snug fit.

[takata]

At what performance level is your mini z mocky, as more than one opinion is going to be helpful.

As the grip facter on slippery surfaces is not a problem, the main test is going to be durability of the tyres when they are on i hopped up cars on a surface such as a netball court which seems to be the favoured location for us mini z enthusists so it has to stand up to the torture that we can inflict.

To give you an Eg.of the grip, the tyres that i have tested are feed tyres that have been worn down to the point that they are no longer suitable (don’t have enough grip to feed the paper) to stay in the machine, no tread what so ever, and they still have superior grip over a tyre that has just been rated by ph2t as an awsome tyre(gandini).

Edited by – takata on 23 January 2005 18:29:13

[dgs73]

i’ve been using these foams for a quite a while now, and can vouch for their durability and traction… awesome on an x-speeded 01 with a ten tooth… found the fetted chassis too powerful for em, ie. try to turn at any more than 1/4 throttle and suddenly too much grip… ever seen a z roll 10 times?:shock:blackeye:

[betty.k]

Quote:

ever seen a z roll 10 times?

hehe, i think you know my answer to that!:dead:

ph2t brought his foam equipped 02 over yesterday and i’m impressed with them. we had to really work hard to get them to slide and they rarely did.
i don’t think they look too bad really and there’s always the option to repaint them. anyways, real racers aint gonna care too much about looks:8ball:

[takata]

Just tested and put the rubber and foam head to head.
1 pair of the thin (9mm) Rubbers on rear and
1 pair of the gandini wide (12mm) foam tyres on the front.

Running with a stock motor, 6 toothed pinion gear and fully charged 850mha energizers.

Result
The car launched hard and straight ahead with no loss of traction and no movement at the rear.

Turning
CONTROLLER SET TO 10(tightest turning circle)

The car was in understeer with anything over 30% throttle.

CONTROLLER SET TO 5 (medium turning circle)

The car was in understeer with anything over 35 -40 % throttle.(and thats being generous with my analysis.)

Controller set on 0 is much to wider turning circle for my kitchen so this could not be tested.

In conclusion for there to be understeer at 30 – 40 % throttle over both controller settings, means there is less traction being held by the front tyres then the rubber tyres on the back.

Understeer (during acceleration) on any car is usually caused from there being a smaller surface area between the tyre and the ground, if the tyre on the front is thinner then on the back, but for me to have placed the thicker FOAM tyres on the front and thinner rubber tyres on the back i honestly thought that the car would not have understeered as easily as it did. And with using the 6T pinion gear
this would creat maximum acceleration for the z and the rubbers still provided perfect traction.

As i do not want to sound like i am putting the foam tyres down as i am not, i am simply just doing a comparison between the two, i purchased the foam tyres from ausmicro and i am definitly glad that i did, and do not think for one minute that i shouldn’t of, they are an excellent product and i suggest anybody to purchase them.

peace out:smiley16::smiley16: takata

Edited by – takata on 24 January 2005 20:31:27

[betty.k]

ok, now for a true comparison put the narrow foams on the rear and wide rubber up front. then repeat your test and tell us how they stack up:smiley2::8ball:

Edited by – betty.k on 24 January 2005 21:46:28

[takata]

ok car acted very strange repeated all processes and they are as follows.

result

launched with minimal wheel spin and minimal side ways movement.

TURNING

Turning at 10
Allowed the throttle to be increased to 50 – 60%
before the front tyres started to vibrate in losing traction but NEVER, even between 60 -80 %
did it understeer and lose its turning circle, then between 80 % and reaching full throttle the car started doing 360’s uncontrollably in either direction.

The process was repeated on 5 and the results were pretty much exactly the same percentage wise and yes between 90% – full throttle the car became the dokin donuts burnout van. 😀

Inconclusion again, yes i know that there are other factors to a loss of traction in the front wheels, but to understeer there must be a insufficient grip in the tyre to cause the car to try and go forward under acceleration rather than holding the car into a turn, just like oversteer there must be a lose of traction.

closing statement:
Even width of a tyre is not always relevent for good traction, composite is the main factor and with all motor sports they all are the same different composites for different surfaces and i feel that the tyres i have are the perfect composite for dusty smooth floors.

If you would like to test them for yourself betty k let me know. :):D:):D:)

[betty.k]

i’m thinking your understeer is caused by the wide track up front when running wide tyres. for a true test i suggest running foams all around, narrow on the front. then run rubber all ’round, again with the narrow tyres up front. my guess is you will notice a lot of oversteer now compared to before when you ran the wide tyres up front.:8ball:

[merc-blue]

ok guys in 1:10 raceing with foams we run wider ones on the rear even though were AWD it has to do with shift od weight and stuff (also witha front one way gear u need as much surface area on ur rears asposibble the weight never shifts forward (notmaly under brakeing it doe but with a one way although the wtihgt goes forward all ypu breaking is done with the rear and also all ur throttle is done with the rear.. abssicaly more surface area more power u an put down.. also foams alround should be better on most surfaces than rubbers all round

[z-beam]

takata, id be very interested in testing out some! i have very smooth 15cm sqaure tiles in side that get dusty and the slight grooves in them from the grout create all kinds of tracking issues to add to the mix of bad hendelling…

pm me with a confirmation and i will then send you my address…

[takata]

I have just got my hands on a few of these feed tyres i think the best bet is for you guys to test them as i already know they are superior to the foams.

Betty.k
The original comparison was not to prove wide or skinnier tyres creat the understeer, just to simply show that even with the grip of the wide foam tyres on the front it was not enough grip compared to the skinnier rubber tyres on back.
When i done the second test i did not get any understeer at all only a vibration in it’s steering which i think was only being caused by the contact surface area of the tyre being so great as all cars have skinny tyres on the front for steering.

I really do think you know what you are talking about betty.k i really do, so if PM me your address i will send some via post give me your wheel width and i will make some to that size.

What i am trying to say simply is……….

I feel that the skinnier size tyres in my custom rubbers all round are going to outhandle wider foams allround. As i have said grip is not a facter for these tyres it is going to be durability on rougher surfaces.

Betty.k please PM me you details and i will post them, and ph2t were have you been in all this discussion i still want you to test these aswell.

Edited by – takata on 26 January 2005 16:44:19

[takata]

Actually Betty.k you will be perfect candidate to test these rubbers i will send them down when you PM me your address and you can get Ph2t over to run against you on the same surface using the foams then you can both swap, i think that is going to be the best comparison Head to Head.

Let me know !!!!!!!!!

[betty.k]

i don’t have a mini z anymore, i’m an xmod convert so i wouldn’t be able to test them out:8ball:

[takata]

These are custom tyres betty.k they have an ID of 16mm but i strech them over my 20mm wheels.
so they should fit.
:):approve::):approve:
takata

[z-beam]

amen ph2t, i got my set of the power foamies today and they make driving on my smooth tiles inside fun instead of purely annoying…

no more spinning out!!!:D

[Author]

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