GF-01 Trail - foam or no foam in the tires?

[smirk-racing 253]

Hi All,

 

I have built a new GF-01 Trail and I am happy to report that the portals and the resulting gear reduction are fantastic. Perhaps not surprisingly, the chassis now clambers over obstacles far more effectively.

 

Question: would it make sense to build the tires with foams? Obviously the kit does not include foams, but the tires are huge and rather balloon-like, so perhaps some foams would be useful. Thoughts? What are the pros and cons of adding some foams?

 

Note for anyone building this chassis: I did remove all shock spaces (so it sits lower) and that helped a lot. The chassis is quite light, and the springs are a bit stuff, so removing the spacers helps it flex while going over obstacles.

[Juggular 4964]

For crawling, people prefer not having foams.  Tires can wrap around the terrain better that way.  Foams make them bouncy.  

 

[lsear2905 1279]

30 minutes ago, Juggular said:

For crawling, people prefer not having foams.  Tires can wrap around the terrain better that way.  Foams make them bouncy.  

Not always the case, but I certainly prefer to have no foams. That said, make sure you always elevate the chassis when storing the vehicle, or else your tires will deform.

[Juls1 1661]

It depends entirely on the tire itself.. soooo, you can't actually answer that question directly.

That being said, Very few tamiya off road tires require inserts (exception some of the racing buggy tires) if your talking the included tires, I see no reason to add foams, the casing is firm enough already. 

Juls

 

[waterbok 1282]

Depends on the tires used, I got foams in both my SCX and CR which run 1.9 and 2.2 flat irons. What works even better is adding weight around the rims to lower center of gravity, my CR wheels weigh approx 350gram each with the added wheelweights.