Wheel Tapping
- Thread starter Nevaehawk
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- Nov 24, 2011
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i know a few guys have spent alot of time trying to make it work, as far as i know only 1 ever made it work, i recall an OLD post on another forum that talked about it and the gain was minimal and not worth the huge amount of time and messed up wheels.
[font="times new roman, times, serif"]Yep! I did that once...(Once) and it ruined my wheel and I did not have time to get new wheels so luckily I was able to make a 3 wheeler out of it. Go a head and play with the idea but have Xtra wheels on hand or use an old junk wheel. You dont really need it as the concept is that it will cause the wheels to turn out away from the car body. It does do that, but it also pushes the wheel into the head of the axle very hard and causes the car to slow down a LOT! Just cant your wheels and your alignment will roll the wheels out gently form the body...it is much easier. If you have to use graphite then you should get some wallgreens qtips (cut off the cotten and use the stick part) and burnish the graphite into the bore & do it a LOT! Also a good idea is one of those pin vices, use it to hold the axle and I used to use a "V" notch in some wood and with a piece of leather I would graphite the axle by rotating it back and forth a LOT!!! I was able to get over 30 second spins on 3 wheels but like I said this process took FOREVER!!! However we did win!!! [/font]
You need to have both a left hand and right hand tap and use the LH on the right side of the car and RH on the left side of the car. You need to use a 4-40 tap. I've used it before with good results (second in a district of 4100 cars, lost by 300 nanaseconds). Don't use just the normal tap on all 4 wheels.
What the heck kind of equipment do they have that measures to the nanosecond???? If my math is correct, 300 nanoseconds would be 3 ten-millionths of a second. I think that's enough to consider it a tie.
jonusgrumby said:
zeebzob said:What the heck kind of equipment do they have that measures to the nanosecond???? If my math is correct, 300 nanoseconds would be 3 ten-millionths of a second. I think that's enough to consider it a tie.
jonusgrumby said:
That'd be one long race too with 4100 cars! Even if you could stage them as fast as running 4 heats a minute that would amount to 17 hours of racing.... and one tired crew!!
The total time difference for 4 runs was 1.2 milliseconds. Since that is 4 races it is 300 microseconds per race. I think I typed nanoseconds, sorry, senior moment.
They send the top 200 cars to the district race. The people at the district race said 4100 cars were entered that year in our District and this was the top 200 cars. There were 93 cars in our pack alone that year we were first in our pack. Obviously some of the 4100 cars were pretty slow but the cars that were there were all at Districts were very close with at least half races impossible to tell which car won, they went by time.
I have a 24 foot test track. The tapped wheels worked well for me but that was 10 plus years ago and there are so many more resources now I don't know if it is really significantly better or not. I haven't tested the new wheels and axles against what I did so I can't say for sure. I do know that on visual inspection it does remove about 1/2 the inner surface which I think from a friction standpoint would be good.
They send the top 200 cars to the district race. The people at the district race said 4100 cars were entered that year in our District and this was the top 200 cars. There were 93 cars in our pack alone that year we were first in our pack. Obviously some of the 4100 cars were pretty slow but the cars that were there were all at Districts were very close with at least half races impossible to tell which car won, they went by time.
I have a 24 foot test track. The tapped wheels worked well for me but that was 10 plus years ago and there are so many more resources now I don't know if it is really significantly better or not. I haven't tested the new wheels and axles against what I did so I can't say for sure. I do know that on visual inspection it does remove about 1/2 the inner surface which I think from a friction standpoint would be good.
Last thing you said was from a friction standpoint... I think it would be better for you to have the inside wheel bore and size of the axle as close as possible for better stability. Less friction maybe but you will be more stable with a better alignment without making your wheel bores bigger. That is if I understand you correctly?
jonusgrumby said:
You very well could be right about the wheel stability. A 4-40 tap doesn't increase the wheel bore all that much and my wheels didn't wobble, but you are correct it is an increased diameter.
You could definately see the wheels tended to go against the axle head and not the body when they were turning and the graphite did get in the grooves when I ran a graphite covered pipe cleaner in the wheel bore after tapping.
I built a couple cars last year for friends. One of the cars I built won the pack race (33 cars) by a very small margin and it had tapped wheels. He finished 7th in his district. There were about 100 cars in the District finals at his race, some were very slow cars.
The other car I built did not have tapped wheels and did not do very well. The cars were different design so I don't think the tapping was the difference.
You could definately see the wheels tended to go against the axle head and not the body when they were turning and the graphite did get in the grooves when I ran a graphite covered pipe cleaner in the wheel bore after tapping.
I built a couple cars last year for friends. One of the cars I built won the pack race (33 cars) by a very small margin and it had tapped wheels. He finished 7th in his district. There were about 100 cars in the District finals at his race, some were very slow cars.
The other car I built did not have tapped wheels and did not do very well. The cars were different design so I don't think the tapping was the difference.
I don't understand how tapping would make the wheel want to move one way or the other. If the axle is polished and smooth what is causing the wheel to grip and climb? In my mind I picture it just spinning on a smooth surface- seems it would have to catch on the axle to want to pull one way or the other. Doesn't the tap leave only innies and no more outies than what were their to begin with?
- Nov 24, 2011
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This my take on wheel tapping. I have had a lot of experience in the past with wheel tapping. I used it all through my 3 boys cub races and they went undefeated. If you polish the axle good the tapping will not create any extra friction. It will hold the graphite in longer. Tapping doesn't work well with oil. Also, only use tapping with a solid axle. (not grooved) The one thing that will happen is when you tap the bore it will cause the high ridges of the tap to expand outward and make it tight on the axle. You will need to install the wheels on the car and run the car back and forth on a table or something similar to work out the tightness. Make sure the wheels spin freely when you are through. A non-tapped bore with a grooved axle will still be faster.
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