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Effigy3

Off road racing tires

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The replacment front axle arrived this past week end and yesterday I finally got the chance to run my Frog around the local track. The track is outdoor clay surface with a long straight away down the back, 2 hairpins, a double and a double-double jump. I put FAV tires/rims front and back figuring that the stock pin spikes would be junk on the sun baked hard, dusty clay track. As it turns out the FAV tires are just about worthless. I slide all over the place under anything more than about 1/2 power. It just spins itself into a donut. Cornering at anything higher than say 1/4 power and I end up facing backwards. Forget about even tapping the brakes!

In an effort to correct this I've purchased: the hex lug adaptors (Item 53913) for the Frog, a full set of black dish rims (Item 54338 and Item 54339), and super soft compound AKA Vektor tires with foam inserts for both front and rear. They are recommended for dusty, clay surfaces. I don't know how these will workout but I'm hitting the track this afternoon and will report back. I'm hopeful they'll make the Frog viable to run on this track. If they don't I guess I'll be searching for a replacement racer to build once I'm done with my sons Desert Gator. Wish me luck!

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So I have some good news and some bad news. Not bad really, just I'm an idiot is all.

The good news is that the new tires are amazing. Seriously, a whole different world. I could turn, corner and run flat out straight with nary a drift, spin or donut. If anyone is considering running a vintage Tamiya car on a dusty clay track, do yourself a favor and use modern tires.

The sort of bad news is that I didn't realize that I needed to glue the front tires to the rims as well as the rear. A few laps in and the tires must've warmed up enough to get really soft. One corner, two corners, and blam! The tire slipped the rim. I popped it back on and the same thing happened to the other tire on an opposite direction turn. Obviously the cornering force was just pushing them off.

04.07.2015-17.14.png

So I'll take them off, clean them up with dish soap, and use the glue on the fronts as well.

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Bit late to this thread. When i raced my Wild One on grass, I used pin spikes on the front wheels and the standard 'oval block' tyres on the back. With the standard 'ribbed' front tyres there was much less turn in (although we raced 2wd with 4wd in the same races - my silver canned Wild One compared to a race tuned CAT!)

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