tires

[WildBro]

... it wouldn't hurt to have an idea of the number of motorcycles requiring 200 mph + tires from all known racing venues, East and West, and the number of replacements needed during the racing seasons, so they can pencil out a forecast for the market.  

Lets not get us milers involved in this.  We are fine the way we are.

Dunlop @ Speedweek said they are building a 300mph drag tire and can convert it to LSR.  Sounded like this was in the works for the near future.

Bill

[nrhs sales]

Noonan,

I think your idea is the right one. Just get a tire manufacturer to go along with it for a reasonable cost. I would think if there was only 1 approved tire that everybody had to run would really simplify things and would keep costs down in the future. Just like Nascar does now.

[WildBro]

Well, BUB is over.... where is all the tire results??
Any failures? any at all??

Bill

[nrhs sales]

None that I saw but then again no bikes went over 240 mph.

[fredvance]

Most of the tires that blistered at SW were sub 200 runs.

[donpearsall]

My Bridgestone BT-003 RACING tire went into automatic deflation mode after about 6 runs. It showed wear, but no damage. I showed it to Drew and the only thing we could figure was lack of quality control. There must be a pinhole in it somewhere. I have not had time to really look at it.

Don

[wobblywalrus]

This is a question from a slow guy.  I am curious, that is all.

My experience with road racing tires is that they come in many different flavors, soft, intermediate, and hard.  Then there are slicks and grooved rain tires.  Tire care is an issue, too.  A fresh new tire is vastly different than one of the same brand and type that sits in a car trunk during the off-season.

Has anyone found a variety of racing tire that works better than any other?   

[firemanjim]

Well, BUB is over.... where is all the tire results??
Any failures? any at all??

Bill

Greg (Maj)here on Jims login 
i chunked one,return after the 229, realy wanted a 230 slip and was spinning lots ,scta spec med/hard race rubber at 50 psi
and i heard of one other racer doing similar but not sure which tire

[k.h.]

A quote from an email this morning in response to my inquiry regarding the availability of used tire testing machines:

As an alternative to buying a machine; there are some companies that have
test machine capable of 300 mph (our lab capability is only 225 mph).
Perhaps we could help you locate a machine that you could rent for your
trials.

Also, we have in our lab a no-load free-spin machine that can free-spin a
tire up to 500 mph. We have used this machine to qualify tires for use on
the salt flats previously. You would have to check with the governing body
to see if you need to test under load or test without load. If they only
require a tire integrity test at high speed with no load, we can do this in
our lab. Charges for such tests are in the range of $150 to $ 250 per tire.

Forty years ago I worked on building a set of tire test machines for a large company, their name started with a "G."  I was hoping, what with the collapse of industry here, that a used machine might be rusting somewhere but available cheap.  But at these prices, it may be worth a look.  Now, the tire testing in Montana by some LSR competitors, I recall that was free-spin.  If it's good enough for the sanctioning orgs, I'd like to shave a few sizes of ZR, buff the nomenclature off the sidewalls, and be the "re-manufacturer" of a set of narrow 18-inch.  Spin them up to 300 and see if they crap out.  Would documentation on the process, complete w/video, have any "traction" with the governing bodies?

[Rick Byrnes]

As I mentioned several months ago, Joe Law, when he retired from LSR with every record he went after, had a tire testing machine that would spin tires. 
It was for sale "cheap" according to a conversation with Joe a couple of years ago.

If you really are interested in testing your own tires have at it.

Looks to me though with all the discussion amongst you motorbike guys, that the problem looks like spinning the tire against the salt, not just centrifugal force that may be generated by high speed.

[k.h.]

That's the difference.  Running the tires up to speed against a load would give a better indication of radial stress resistance.  However, there is no accounting for tire spin on the drum surface to reflect tires spinning on salt.

[1212FBGS]

centrifugal force affects the tire at the rim bead area lifting the tire off of the bead causing air leakage... the lighter race spec tire has not had that problem.... The Bridgestone tires are lighter than Dunlops.... the tire damage we have see has been blistering of the tread surface...... absolutely and only caused by heat.... a free spun tire testing does not develop heat to recreate the problems we are having.... a loaded tire experiences carcuss distortion as well as surface contact both developing heat..... to help determine and recreate the problems we are exhibiting the tire must be loaded and spun..
Kent

[k.h.]

Last week I ran across more notes from conversations with Marvin Rifchen 6 years ago.  Some non-radial stuff included about numbers of cord layers to increase stiffness and keep the beads from moving in on the rims, along with the wire in the bead to resist centrifugal growth. 

For free-spinning, it would be just as easy to do some calculations and rig up an attachment to the PTO on the big tractor down on the farm.  The quote above is from STL in Massilon, OH, if any interested parties or folk from tire committees have interest in direct contact w/o a post whore like me as a filter.  <fm--at--stllabs.com>

[Grandpa Jones]

centrifugal force affects the tire at the rim bead area lifting the tire off of the bead causing air leakage... the lighter race spec tire has not had that problem.... The Bridgestone tires are lighter than Dunlops.... the tire damage we have see has been blistering of the tread surface...... absolutely and only caused by heat.... a free spun tire testing does not develop heat to recreate the problems we are having.... a loaded tire experiences carcuss distortion as well as surface contact both developing heat..... to help determine and recreate the problems we are exhibiting the tire must be loaded and spun..
Kent

Thank you Kent! Much quality info there, made it worth wading through all these posts.

Cheers,

Dave

[1212FBGS]

rigging up a machine to free spin is a piece of cake.... we could actually spin/load test on our dyno up to 200mph but the bearings would need to be serviced frequently.....