Who has the better closed cell foams for crawling, Crawler Innovations or Pro-Line

[bbrigg]

Most of my crawling spots feature water in parts and, here in the tropics, heavy rain will often leave a fair amount of surface water everywhere else. My stock foams soak it up through the breather holes in the tires and, with the extra weight of the water and the foams being wet, the tires bunch up badly when hitting steep inclines and they fold over on side slopes.

I'm only running 2S brushed and spinning the wheels fast doesn't do much to get rid of the water. In a lot of my spots I have to crawl right out of the water in any case. I've considered going with air but a lot of people say it isn't that great. Two-piece foams might help but I'm not sure it would fix the problem.

It looks like closed cell foams are the only way to go but I want as much crawling performance as possible. Which closed cell foams are better for crawling, the Crawler Innovations or Pro-Line?

 

[WHITE-TRASH]

Neither. Closed cell foam is dense and hard. I suppose it could be grooved and milled out enough to soften it up but it will still suck

 

[mikemcE]

Look into double deuces. They have both open and closed cell.

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[bbrigg]

Look into double deuces. They have both open and closed cell.

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Have you used them wet?

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[ferp420]

Closed cell foam works great on heavy rigs 15-20lb range on one of my rigs im running a tire inside a tire kinda like a tube with a little bit of foam on the inside tire the gap between the tires makes for the perfict amount of initial flex the tire stays nice and soft and when the tire is loaded up the tire stiffens up for sidehilling and climbing or handeling extra weight im running hyrax outer tire and a austar inner tire/tube the hyrax is like 5.75 od and the austar is 5.0 od so so i get almost a.1/4" if flex before the foams come in to play that gives the tire a nice flat consistant bitting surface

 

[mikemcE]

Have you used them wet?

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Yup. The idea is water will saturate the outside open foam, but not into the center core. Then wheelspeed will spin water out through the vents in your tires(not wheels).
Only issue might be not enough speed on 2s. I only run 3s


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[tjohanne]

I have used both Proline and C.I. closed cell. If you have Proline wheels, use Proline foams. If you have 'normal' wheels, use C.I. foams. They fit better this way. Proline foams and wheels are shaped with a groove in the centre inner wheel ring.
The C.I. foam is wider on the outer edge and makes the tires stretch a bit more (Proline more rounded). They also soften up more than prolines, in my experience.

Go C.I., it's a much safer choice for standard wheels. Just be sure you get the right size for the tire. That is very important with closed cells.

Edit: I think the Prolines are so stiff that I would mostly use them for high speed. C.I. is still good for crawling.

 

[bbrigg]

Yup. The idea is water will saturate the outside open foam, but not into the center core. Then wheelspeed will spin water out through the vents in your tires(not wheels).
Only issue might be not enough speed on 2s. I only run 3s


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What size Lil Novas would you recommend for the 4.75 TSLs?

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[tjohanne]

This is what I mean:

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[bbrigg]

I have used both Proline and C.I. closed cell. If you have Proline wheels, use Proline foams. If you have 'normal' wheels, use C.I. foams. They fit better this way. Proline foams and wheels are shaped with a groove in the centre inner wheel ring.
The C.I. foam is wider on the outer edge and makes the tires stretch a bit more (Proline more rounded). They also soften up more than prolines, in my experience.

Go C.I., it's a much safer choice for standard wheels. Just be sure you get the right size for the tire. That is very important with closed cells.

Edit: I think the Prolines are so stiff that I would mostly use them for high speed. C.I. is still good for crawling.

Thanks for the advice.

The blurb on the closed cell foams actually has things a bit the other way around. Looking at pictures of the foams the Pro-line has deeper grooves so I was believing they would have been softer. Of course, there's no way to tell the foam density from the pictures.

I'll order some CI foams an let you know how it goes. With living in Indonesia and working all over the world that may be a while away. To be on the safe side I'll probably get a pair of Lil Novas in each density as well to save having to wait if the closed cells don't work well enough.

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[bbrigg]

This is what I mean:

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I've looked at those pictures a lot over the last few days but thanks for putting them on here.

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[mikemcE]

What size Lil Novas would you recommend for the 4.75 TSLs?

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I wouldn’t have a clue as I’m a 2.2 guy. BUT drop Eddie at CI a pm, tell him weight, etc and he will get you set!


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[mikemcE]

This is what I mean:

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CI also has both tuning rings and tuning discs to solve those issues


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[soze]

I have both CI single stage and Pro-line Single stage in 1.9". The CI single stage has more give, and would be better for crawling. The Pro-line's are stiffer and probably better for rock racing. Also the CI's only have 2 ribs in the middle where the PL has 4, which probably accounts for some of the differences in stiffness between the 2.

 

[tjohanne]

Now I have been runnig my Proline closed cells a bit more. I find they are way too stiff/hard for my purpose. I would only run them for racing (if I was racing). The CI are much better for me, on trail runs and crawling. I hoped they would soften up a bit, but no..
Completely agree with soze above.

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[Bananaclip]

Correct me if I'm wrong fellas. The proline single stage is wide compared to the common CI closed cell...

 

[JatoTheRipper]

I'll take the Proline foams all day especially for Proline tires.

The only time I've ever had fitment issues was with CI foams.

Proline foams go together better for me and seem to stay together better. This leads to better sidewall support.

The inner foams can be as stiff as possible as long as the outer foams comply with the terrain and Proline foams do that quite well.

 

[Natedog]

I've ran both CI and Pro-Line, Prolines hold their shape better and take little longer to break-in. CIs are sometimes kinda sloppy fit on the wheel right out of the bag, they are slightly less dense and soften/break down faster. I'm a fan of the single stage foams, works great, don't get water saturated (closed cell foam) I've not had any problems fitting CI or Proline to any wheel (RC4WD, SSD, HR, Axial, Vaterra) but all foams can be trimmed with scissors or sharp knife. Two stage foams break down too fast for me and are not as consistent, if you want to end up with medium then start with firm, it will soften that much in a month or two of crawling.

CI makes foams to fit way more tires (need more 1.55 and 1.7 sizes), Pro-Line is more precisely cut and the fit is better and more consistent. You can cut, trim, combine foams of any size and type to get what you are looking for, also can make your own foams as Codyboy (Ernie) does, just takes a little time and experimentation to get dialed in no matter what foams you run.