Silifoam Tire Question...

[bondoman2k]

OK gang. Sitting here shaving down some rims on a 4 gear, and truing some foam donuts to glue on and try to silicone coat my own rears. Got the Versa Chem Flowable Silicone to use on them, just got done getting the donuts almost trued up, as well as the rims. Got me wondering, has anyone tried just using the foam tires without coating them? Just curious if it's really something I should try. I know some of the 'older' AFX and 4gear type cars actually had 'foam' rear tires on them, but don't know if they really worked as well as silicones, or if they were a more 'firm' type of foam than what I have (that was a LONG time ago, and I actually can't remember if any of my cars had the foams or not). IF I can run these without coating them, it sure would make it a LOT easier to finish them! LOL! ;D Just a thought, I figure I'll probly still end up coating them anyway, unless someone can prove to me it will work this way.
Any thoughts on this?
Ron (Bondo)

[440gtx]

Hey Ron,

I think you can plan on coating them if you are looking for traction. I think that you will find that just the foam will be worse than slip on silicones. The first slot cars that I ever got were AFX's(Christmas 1974) and they came with foam tires. The first thing that Dad did was buy and install silicones on them. The Tyco 440's originally came with foam tires and we always replaced them with silicone.

Matt

[Bananasmoothie1975]

Ron, depends on ya foam - if it's a foam rubber then yes, they will work!
If it's a plastic type rubber then no.
I turned my donuts from black foam rubber(Neoprene) tape offcuts, available in different densities.
They grip well, even more so when warmed up.
Still not as outrageously grippy as silifoams, but better than standard rubber tyres.

Personally I'm a fan of sponge rubber tyres, they're nice n quiet and have an old skool appeal

[pceng]

Hey Ron,
Pretty sure you wouldn't be happy with foam. Used to use foam alot years ago. I'd say they fall somewhere between stock and slip-on silis, probably closser to stock. I forget the name, but once upon a time there was a treatment for foam tires. Rubbed in and they would become stickey. More so than anything I've seen since. Think it fell by the wayside, commercial tracks would not allow it and that probably hurt. Never had any problem with build up on home tracks we ran.
But hey good luck with the sili-foams. If your intrested with tire treatments, some use engine treatments (auto parts), like STP. Don't know if it will work, haven't tried it
................. PC