kermooni

Drove RA Sept 6&7 with a set of R6's on '09 painted wheels with around 90 miles on them purchsed from a fellow forum member.

The tires were mounted and balanced by the largest Vette dealer in Minn with a great reputation for quality service with which I agree.

On my last session on Sat, my steering wheel started to vibrate - bad. I was mentally and physically spent after the 2nd Sunday session. So I loaded up the car and trailered it home.

This morning I took it to the same dealer to prep it for the upcoming PCA event at BIR. He left me a vm and said all tires except RF were off balance by 1/2 to 1 Oz. The RF was off by 4 Oz

He thought the tire had slipped on the wheel due to braking pressure. He mentioned they could use "Bead Seal" material. I thought this stuff was "required" on all tire installs.

Please advise as to potential cause and whether I should have the "seal".

trackboss

I mark my tires on my race car all the time and they slip every session out. It is very normal under braking for them to do that. Hitting burms and unloading the corner of the car will do that as well when exiting under power. I've heard of tire mounters using things like brake cleaner to lube the bead and attempt to quickly install the tire since the cleaner dries fast and leaves no slippery residue. never use a wet lubricant when mounting. The paste is pretty common so you can have the mounting person use as little as possible, but the tires will still probably slip.
-V

mcar00

If there is a way to keep sticky tires from moving on the rim I haven't figured out what it is. The solution that works for me is to permanently balance each of the wheels without the tires installed. Then install the tire and rebalance the wheel and tire. Since the wheel is already balanced the weight will go on the light end of the tire. Permanently mark the weights that were added for the tire. I usually just write "tire" on the weights themeselves. Then mark the outside of the tire at the point where the "tire" weights were added. This way even though the tire moves on the rim, you always know where the weights for the tire belong without having to rebalance them. When you get home from the track remove the old "tire" weights and stick on new ones (in the same amount) to the location on the rim marked on the outside of the tire. It's a little more work in the beginning but you only have to balance your "wheels only" one time and those weights stay there permanently.

kermooni

Thanks guys. But what do pro racers do? They generate significantly more stopping power with their brakes and move at much faster speeds constantly going over the berms?

larryfs

the pro racers throw their tires away after a session.

kermooni

Their sessions are hours, mine 25 min. Their tires have to slip off unless they have some kind of magic.

AU N EGL

I dont balance my rear wheels any more. Just mount them, the tires slide on the rims too much.

WBHighwind

I also noticed this last week end that its hard to keep the balancing weights stuck to the wheel. By the end of the week end, I had several of them laying on the ground in my pit spot. It didnt seem to effect things too much as I ran my fastest times in my last session of the week end.

0Randy@DRM

Tires move on wheels all the time. Things you can do pretty easily to help the fight. Nice pretty smooth paint is about the worst thing you can mount a tire on. It's like oil for the bead. Use about 60 grit sand paper and rough up the bead sealing surface on the wheels. Also like said before, you can use carb cleaner or something that dries for lube during mounting.

Randy