Tire width question

[NeoSlayer888]

I am wondering why people are narrowing there tires. I would think you would want a wider tire so you have more contact with the rocks. Wouldn’t that give you better traction? The only reason I can see for narrowing tires is it looks more realistic and that they are lighter, easier to turn. If narrowed tires are better can anyone explain to me why?

-EDIT- changed with to width

[DirkDigler]

Mr. Slayer,
It is deceiving, isn't it. Actually, more traction will come from a skinnier tire. It has to do with something called a "contact patch". There is more pounds per square inch on the ground with a skinny tire. Get it. The weight on the tires gives them better bite. Contact patch is where the area of the tread is in direct contact with the surface of rock or ground, etc. Also, a narrow tire flexes better than a very wide one. A wide tire is made to float and travel over objects, while a narrow tire can go between, conform to, and get that better bite to crawl that little bit better that we are all after. Does this help you?

[TwistedCreations]

no it dont help me

ok, so say you take a BFT tire which is 7" tall and like 3.5" wide.Then you narrow it down to 2". so you are saying that the 2" tire will have more contact patch :? ??

how is that. you are cutting 1.5" off that tire so it is making it lighter,so that wouldn't help it to bite harder. both tires would stay right about 7" so they would conform just about the same. a tire with a taller sidewall would wrap around stuff better then a tire without much sidewall( not as tall)

the way i see it is just preference...a wider tire will give you better stability when in offcamber situations, but yet it can get in a bind in some places when a skinny tire could just go through that area..


but a wider tire gives more contact patch than a skinny tire.just like in a 1:1 trail rig..if you take a 35x12.50 next to a 35x15.50 tire. the 15.50 would have a wider patch..but if thats not enough, why does almost everyone in fourwheelin air down their tires- to get a wider contact patch

[DirkDigler]

Toyotafourwheelin,
you know I like ya but you're way off.

rememeber, I said pounds per square inch. That is the key. If you have wide tread, you are spreading the weight thin over a larger area. Not good. You really want to concentrate the weight in one small spot. It gives tons of "stiction".
As for airing down, wrong again!
You should know this> Airing down is to make the tire more pliable in rocks, not to increase the width. True, it does help to get more tread on the ground but that is not the reason for airing down. The only time you really want to airdown to get a bigger foot print is when you are in sand and you float on top of the sand.

[DirkDigler]

PS. We are talking about crawling right?

All of the hardcore comp rigs use 37x12.5 or 40x13.5 tires. very tall and narrow. you never see the old school 35x15.5 and 38x16 tires anymore in competition. Why, traction is king!!!! and the skinnies have the best traction.

[NeoSlayer888]

Thanks Mr. ,
You answered all my question. I knew it had something to do with contact patch but I thought it went the other way around.

[NeoSlayer888]

Just a thought on 1:1 crawler tires. They should make 37x12.5 Krawler T/A

for R/C. I would love to see a tire that looks like a real comp tire and is scale in height to width ratio.

[DirkDigler]

Trust me. I know what I'm talking about on this one. I have a good friend who was on the BFG tire design team back when they only had the 33x12.5 Mud Terrain. BFG wanted to make a tire that had super traction. Something that was narrow and nimble but most importantly, it had to bite hard, like no other tire they made. They accomplished this by making the exact same tire they already had, and narrowed it to be 33x9.5. Surprisingly, the idea never really caught on to the public. It didn't sell that well but for those of us who did buy them and try them in rock crawling know how good of a tire it was. It was just too short though. Recently, all the big guys, like Goodyear and BFG, make the tall skinny tires now. They are no different from the old 33x9.5 BFG, they are just taller with the same principal. More pounds per square inch in the contact patch.

[TwistedCreations]

pete, wasn't they going to make a RC tire that looked like the Krawlers? what happened to that, did it just fall out?

[DirkDigler]

Yes.
The whole project fell apart. That's one reason IMEX is taking so much heat from the RC community. I know several individuals that have been speaking wtih IMEX trying to re-kinddle the project. It is a possibility but IMEX has a lot of people that are a bit difficult to work with, it seems. We'll just have to wait and see.

[zBigBadWolf]

Of course all of this depends on the terrain. On semi-smooth rock the skinny tire theory would seem to hold true. However, on the kind of stuff I've been crawling on, the skinny tires actually sucked. Concrete chunks have way too many crevices to be skinny tire freindly. Every time I turned around the tires were getting sucked into a hole. AND, they did not grab like my nice mushy cut Clod tires. Kevinlongisland can testify to this since he was there.

Also, on loose dirt or mud, wider tires are much more desireable.

would that be these soon to be released Imex krawlers?


;)

[pont_tranzam]

Hey spoon those tires look almost identical could you tell us what kind they are and were you got them