Thoughts on RC4WD Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac 1.9" Scale Tires

[mk3jetta]

Originally Posted by canadianbacon

So do I, but not a huge size, around 4.4 or 4.5.

4.50-4.6 would be fine in my book, I love my Gladiators but I always loved the look of the Mtr. Had the 2 face tires not sucked I'd have a set on the truck haha

[canadianbacon]

Originally Posted by mk3jetta

4.50-4.6 would be fine in my book, I love my Gladiators but I always loved the look of the Mtr. Had the 2 face tires not sucked I'd have a set on the truck haha

I had some Two-Faces as well, but like you said they sucked, especially in my terrain.

[btoungette]

I finally got a chance to run the Duratrac tires this past weekend at a local SORRCA comp. Three 10-gate courses in a dry creek bed. The creek does flow during heavy rain and there was some residual water in places from recent storms.

I have to say that this event did not allow for enough time to properly get a feel for the tires. I thought it might, but I need to take them out and run them for a few hours on various terrain like in G6 competitions. I will try to find enough time soon to do a longer run with them.

From the drive-time at the event on Saturday, I felt that the Duratracs allowed some under-steer on a couple off-camber turns on dirty rock. They seemed to push a little instead of gripping the rock like I needed. That cost a few reverse penalties. It could have been from the soft foams allowing the tire to roll. I was not at a vantage point to see the tire in those situations. A friend mentioned he thought the foams were an issue, which I think was expected.

I saw no wear on the tires from what little run-time they had. I didn't see any gouges or damage to the carcass. The tread seemed to clean fine from what little sticky dirt we ran through.

One weird thing I noticed was the tires didn't seem as sticky to the touch as they did fresh out of the bag.

What I learned from the first drive: I need to do some foam tuning. I have the tires vented; so, the foam will need to do more work to hold the tire up, especially in turns and off-camber situations. I also learned that one comp is not enough run-time to properly evaluate the tires.

I love the look of the Duratracs on the TF2. I think they are a win in that category. But, we are about performance and I need more run-time to determine where they stack-up to other tires I've ran.

[btoungette]

I finally made a foam choice. I did some research on the various foam offerings from Crawler Innovations and ran across one that I think will work.




I found out that the closed-cell inner on a 4.25" Lil' Nova foam was the same size as the CWR-3006, actually the CWR-3006 is a comp cut replacement for the 4.25" closed-cell inner. Just so happens, I had a set of the 4.25" Lil' Novas. I took the closed-cell inner foam and stuffed it into the RC4WD Duratrac. It was s tight fit. It filled the tire out nicely. That particular non-comp cut foam would probably be too much for the tire, but could work after breaking it in. I took advantage of a good coupon weekend at RPP and purchased the CWR-3006 foams.










You can see the comparison with the stock foams above. The CI foams are a little wider and a touch shorter and definitely firmer. With the comp cut, they still have softness in the tread area for grip, but maintain support for off-camber situations.

You can see below how well they square-up the tire. CI foams are in the tires on the left.






I'm looking forward to running these in a comp on Saturday. I expect more predictable control with the firmer foams.

While changing the foams, I noticed a small tear in the tire. It was only superficial; it didn't go all the way through the tire. I didn't notice it when I looked over the rig after the last comp which leads me to think that I sliced it with the inner ring. I took some crazy glue and closed it up.







I'll follow-up after some testing this weekend.