"arguably the best rock-crawling tires available."

[d-fly]

http://www.gmade.net/bbs/zboard.php?...desc=asc&no=14

Title is a quote from the gmade site. I dont under stand why everyone uses panther and hot bodies. Gmade's Bighorn tires are arguably the best rock-crawling tires available.

Thought this was humorous and wanted to share. its posted in the tire specs
Has any one tried the gmade air tires?
http://www.gmade.net/bbs/zboard.php?...&desc=asc&no=6

[BEELZEBOB]

they look like HPI grabberrs.

the air pump is kinda cool.

[d-fly]

Ya my friend and i where talking about it. they look like the grabbers. But they where out before the grabbers I think. Maybe the grabbers look like them. Hpi taking gmades ideas hahaha

[Frankenwheely]

Like the pump logo.

[Reflektr]

Woah, that's pretty neat. It would surely suck if you hit a thorn or a jagged rock though. It would lake less time to change a tire on a fullsize rig! The first day with my mountain board I hit thorns...And it has pump tires with beadlocks lol. An onboard air setup controlled via transmitter will be the next generation in crawler tires...

[team3six]

OK, to clear this up. I was an owner of the Bighorn G-Air tires.
1. They are agood tire. They have lots of grab and handle well
2. The air is a usless point as I found out. I suppose if you just use a small pump of air they are fine but the rims need to be weighted. No weight then dont count on them grabbing anything
3. Your better off just buying the bighorns with the regular rims and if your gonna have to wait from them to get into the country VIA hong Kong. your better off going with anyone elses rims and tires period.
As i understand RPPHOBBY carries them. And if they do then give em a try. other than that I choose a dozen other rims and tires out there that will give you better performance.

[RustlerHustler]

My bro in law, Redking on here, has a set of these. I'll see if I can get him to chime in with his experiences. I know that he has run the tires, might be using them right now, but not sure if he's had a chance to run the rims.

[redking]

on the left is a stock RockForce rim and on the right is a GMade. as you can see the RF is 2" wide ane the GMades are 1.5" wide. Sorry didn't feel like pulling apart my vanquishs' I ran the GMade/Bighorn combo w/air only and they were too bouncy IMO. i haven't done it yet but my idea was to pull the air stem out and run the rim weighted, or non weighted with mem foams. it looks like you could drop some weights between the areas of where the screws for the beadlock attaches to make them heavier. the only plus i see to this is you already have your breather hole in the rim.


the tread patterns are similar between the BigHorn and the Grabbers, but the Grabbers have an offset on the tread height and lug pattern. The stock RF's look like Mashers as i'm sure everyone would agree. IMO the offsets of the tread height and pattern would give the tire a greater ability to grab onto the rocks, hence the name.


Also the recessed sidewall tread on the Grabbers, IMO, have an advantage over the BigHorns solid lug. Again more places for the tread to bite.


Now my curiosity is peeked to see how well the Bighorns actually do. Unfortunately i didn't get to play with them on the rocks the last time i used them. As for the rims i agree with team3six. you're better off spending your money on something else. thought about the whole 1:1 thing and how they would only run about 5 psi, the whole reason for beadlocks, and gave them a shot. wasn't impressed:-( IMO, the only way to run the GMade rims is with foams.

if i get some free time for testing, i'll post on how the two really compare.

[team3six]

Well at the MSD comp when i ran mine un weighted. with 1/4 full air. it was just a bear to control. Yeah I should of placed weights in them but I figured as heavy as the truck was already that it wouldnt be a problem. I didnt finish one of the courses. but partially to blame is the fact that it was my first comp ever driving the truck. other reasons were, Gmade shocks are nice. wrong fluid in them for that truck, Front servo I got scamed on by an ebay seller who took plastic gears and placed them in a 645MG case.
Course one started out with me being too top heavy, broke the servo right away.
Second course was all about me doing too many reverses and not realizing I coulda used my winch to help me out and eliminate time
third course actually wasnt that bad. Doing well until the end where i just got hung up on a few things that killed my time
course four showed me the reason to not use these wheels because it was slong the stream edge and when i got in the water with these and hit a rock even with a running start i got nothing but stuck. the tires just wouldnt grab the rock to get over. Then on the incline I couldnt stay on the damn log because the wet tires were killing me.

bottom line is inexperiance, wrong weight distribution, bad servo choice and lot of unneeded scaler gear did nothing but hurt rather than help.

Like I was told by many people. "That truck is awsome" just sucked for comping with.

But like I said if those wheels were run with foams and weighted, On a lower CG chassis with the right build. Im sure they would work great! Other than that. I learned alot of things that so far in the last three comps I have run have prooved to teach me lessons and keep me competing.

My suggestion to anyone wanting to learn. Go to a comp even if your not competeing and watch, ask questions, and see what works and what doesnt. The great thing is alot of those guys at the MSD comp were very helpful and more than happy to offer me advice to be sucessful. I hope other people are like that at major events. it made me a better driver and gave me an experiance to come back the next time with a better proven rig.

[Calderwood]

I didn't realize pirates made them... straight from the gmade site: "arge, deep lugs provide exceptional traction in rock, mud, and dirt."

[redking]

"My suggestion to anyone wanting to learn. Go to a comp even if your not competeing and watch, ask questions, and see what works and what doesnt. The great thing is alot of those guys at the MSD comp were very helpful and more than happy to offer me advice to be sucessful. I hope other people are like that at major events. it made me a better driver and gave me an experiance to come back the next time with a better proven rig."

I concur with 3six. Most people at our gtg's and comps are willing to give advice without hesitation. I jumped into it and am learning the hard way, but only by asking the ??? all of you are willing to answer.