Here’s an interesting question I could not find an answer searching this forum.
In prep the cars for this month’s race, I noticed I was getting slower and slower, to a point where I became almost 3 100ths off of where I was. I got body down to a science such that I can drill one and run .45 to .5 oz on the FDW with only 2 to 2.5" in of steer, and if weighted right for that particular car, can run with absolutely no wiggle at all. Very stable - the best I have ever done. Yet I'm getting slower. Needless to say, running at that speed, I might not even win a cub race, and so, I did not send any cars in and decided to continue prepping for the next race. I guess I have a jump on you all.
With a little help, I started to diagnose the problem and came to the conclusion that the wheels are the culprit. On the cars I was going to send in, they all had wheels that were raced twice before. This would have been the 3[sup]rd[/sup] race. As I saw myself getting slower, I would remove the wheels and axles, re-prep, reinstall, and retest. I’m sure I did this 4 or 5 times, maybe more (some long nights)
A re-prep would consist of washing the wheels in alcohol, blow dry, wax the bore and wait, and a pipe cleaner buff at medium speed. I would also lightly dress up the inner hub and edge, but do almost nothing to the outer hub other than wax, wait, and buff. When I just checked the wheels, the bores were at .097 to .0975, and honestly, I cannot tell how true they are, or how true the inner and outer hubs are either. I do buy most of my wheels from John, so I do not have the luxury of find wheels with a .096 bore, and I never did record what the bore size was when I first raced them. I just prep them and race them, and I did do reasonably well when I first put them on.
So my question is: did I reach the life expectancy of these wheels? I do have new ones and will prep them as new tonight to find my own answer, but I was curious as to what others thought. When tracking the speed of my different cars (and that’s many more than what I send in), I never tracked the number of re-preps or the number of races on them, the initial or current bore size, but that could be something I should be doing in the future. I just hate sticking things in a prepped wheel bore.
In prep the cars for this month’s race, I noticed I was getting slower and slower, to a point where I became almost 3 100ths off of where I was. I got body down to a science such that I can drill one and run .45 to .5 oz on the FDW with only 2 to 2.5" in of steer, and if weighted right for that particular car, can run with absolutely no wiggle at all. Very stable - the best I have ever done. Yet I'm getting slower. Needless to say, running at that speed, I might not even win a cub race, and so, I did not send any cars in and decided to continue prepping for the next race. I guess I have a jump on you all.
With a little help, I started to diagnose the problem and came to the conclusion that the wheels are the culprit. On the cars I was going to send in, they all had wheels that were raced twice before. This would have been the 3[sup]rd[/sup] race. As I saw myself getting slower, I would remove the wheels and axles, re-prep, reinstall, and retest. I’m sure I did this 4 or 5 times, maybe more (some long nights)
A re-prep would consist of washing the wheels in alcohol, blow dry, wax the bore and wait, and a pipe cleaner buff at medium speed. I would also lightly dress up the inner hub and edge, but do almost nothing to the outer hub other than wax, wait, and buff. When I just checked the wheels, the bores were at .097 to .0975, and honestly, I cannot tell how true they are, or how true the inner and outer hubs are either. I do buy most of my wheels from John, so I do not have the luxury of find wheels with a .096 bore, and I never did record what the bore size was when I first raced them. I just prep them and race them, and I did do reasonably well when I first put them on.
So my question is: did I reach the life expectancy of these wheels? I do have new ones and will prep them as new tonight to find my own answer, but I was curious as to what others thought. When tracking the speed of my different cars (and that’s many more than what I send in), I never tracked the number of re-preps or the number of races on them, the initial or current bore size, but that could be something I should be doing in the future. I just hate sticking things in a prepped wheel bore.
