Crawler Innovations 1.9 Closed Cell Review

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I have been wanting to try a set of closed cell foams in my Jeep and recently I got my hands on a set so here is my review.

I'll be installing these foams in some custom Ironwork 5.0" Flat Irons mounted on Mayhem Trailshooters.. Eddie is very knowledgeable when it comes to what setup works so I asked him what he thought I should be running on my 8lb Jeep and his answer was "Lil' Nova 1.9 Dual Stage 4.5" foams w/ soft front outers and medium rear outers."

I reminded him that this was a 5" tall tire and he again said to go with the 4.5" foam due to the weight of the my Jeep. After I thought about it his answer made sense. If you have a 5" tall tire a 5" foam will completely stuff it. Why not go with a slightly smaller foam that is wide leaving you room for trimming to soften up your overall feel? The closed cells do all the work as far as inner stability and side hilling so overall softness is the only thing that I'm worried about now.

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Here is the Jeep sporting my old foam setup. It consisted of a old 5.0" soft outer foam with a medium 1.9 old comp foam. This setup felt very soft and was nice for slow crawling but there was a lot of sidewall rolling at high speeds and in certain situations the foams were so soft that they couldn't pull me out of a deep hole.

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New foams! I could already tell that I'd have to trim some off of these outers. No problem with me, I'd rather be able to trim some off than not have enough.



First up I had to vent the foams. Some people like to vent the tire, but I have never really cared for that method so I drill my foams. A fellow ARCC member Corkysk8 shared his method with me. It involves channeling the inner foam to allow air to circulate just in case if your foams shift while mounted. Thanks Corky! This seems to work very well.





And lastly I drill several holes in the foam to allow the air to get through.

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Here they are mounted up. I ended up trimming .5" from the front and rear outer foams to narrow therm up. I really like how the closed cell allows for the tires to not sag as much, even though softeness=sag=scale look. I am willing to sacrifice the "look" for performance and from these poser shots they appear to conform well.







Stay tuned, there will be some action pics and video.

[eric113]

Holy big pictures!

[ROLANDROCKSHOP]

very nice!

maybe that'll wake up that old heep..

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Originally Posted by eric113

Holy big pictures!

They looked fine on my end, there is an automatic resizer on this forum but I guess it doesn't work on all browsers.


Fixed now

[Nova's Ark]

Good write up Ashton, thank you sir. I like Corky's idea for the air channel in the closed cell inner foam.

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Originally Posted by ROLANDROCKSHOP

very nice!

maybe that'll wake up that old heep..

Originally Posted by Nova's Ark

Good write up Ashton, thank you sir. I like Corky's idea for the air channel in the closed cell inner foam.

Thanks guys! These foams really have changed this Jeep. They are soft enough to let the tire work but they don't plop out when you don't need them too and the feel is just more scale in my opinion. The fast rebound when the tire unloads it's hold is really nice.

Here are a few pics:

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and video:

YOUTUBE

[Szczerba]

Foam and tire setup was working good before these new foams. Looks like they are working even better now. Those tires work really good for that Jeep.

[JeremyH]

Cool video! Man, I used to have that tape...