Which tire softener?

In reply to freetors:

You probably could roll interally with a non-aggressive prep.

Zombie thread

After a poor judgement call in food, i had a lot of time in a small contained space last night to think. 

How long, and how often should old slicks be soaked? My application is a set of old, hard hoosier sm7 for autocross. And old drag slicks.

Does it only give one good lap? Or a full day of 5-7 runs? Or 3 days (15-21 runs) does it eat the tire over time to make it unsafe or anything? 

In other words, whats the long term effects and lifespan?

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

You need to think about the long term effects of those gas station burritos. 

In reply to Stampie :

Not a gas station burrito or gas station sushi!

Taco hell. (Kinda went on a crappy fast food bender when the blood sugar dropped)

I'm really interested in this as well. I think there are in general two kinds of tire prep: adhesion promoter (formula v, applied to track and to tires) and rubber softener (basically the  rest of the products, applied only to tires). 

I used formula v on my tires on the saab truck before the last challenge, but I have no idea if it helped them or not. I have not done any back to back testing, though maybe I could...

kevlarcorolla said:

To be honest I'm quite dissapointed in the lack of replies,surely to god if there's going to be a load cheap bastards trying to get more life out of a set of tires this would be the place.

Since you say it that way,     More to it than you may think, If the tires are mounted good , pump them to 35 lbs. Get 4 Burlap Sacks ,cut the width of the tire, wrap around the tire 3-4 times, 2 will work but..Get ya A good Jar Like Shine comes in, poke a bunch of holes in the lid, Fill with F.V softener, soak the sacks good NOT the side walls! then Wrap them in Saran wrap till they are seald up on the tire surface, wait a little less than 24 hrs. and un wrap lay on their side  try to clean up so not so obvious, let them air out for a bit and reduce air pressure out , refill and mount at the track.

I have done it this way for years and on a New Tire, Durometer readings could be in the 5's. NEVER put softener Inside a tire.

Cactus said:

Goatpee, is that a brandname or is that to be taken literally? (definitely not to be taken orally)

A brand name, not literally goat pee. There's also cat crap to keep your helmet from fogging!

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

If you run Track Tac Red, The tires will need to set for a least a week. That after applying 3-4 coats once a day for two days. Make sure to set the air pressures for what you want to run.

Sounds like a lot of these labor-intensive techniques are only for shop owners or unemployed people!

Mineral spirits and acetone type stuff is common in a lot of sheds, shops, and tool closets and is way better for your challenge budget than a set of stickers.  I think it's an exceptional way to spend Duster's time!

In reply to GCrites80s :

It does take about 30 minutes. However, I rather put WD-40 on the tores after a Auto-X event and buy new tires when needed. Easier to make a driver faster as well.

I used Formula V (and some WD40) to keep some VERY old AutoX tires semi-alive  for a number of years (these tires where a good 10 years old by the end!).  I was primarily keeping them alive though, I highly doubt there where in anyway competitive, but they did drive fine. They eventually did get too hard / dry to soften.

A couple of years ago I dropped $50 on a gallon of Formula V and did the "coat tire and cover with saran wrap" thing several times.  Doing a bit of research and tinkering I noticed the gallon of tiki torch fuel on the shelf in my garage and got exactly the same results on old R-comps used for autocross.  The TT fuel is something like $8 a gallon so if one were looking for just a bit of extra life out of their rubber they could give it a shot a lot cheaper than the $50 can.

Hmm...  For those of us who rallycross, I wonder if there's anything to gain from treating tires for dirt?  Especially for non-snow tires and those of us who can't run rally tires because they don't come in a suitable size.  

In reply to rslifkin :

Short Answer: Yes. 

Should? No.

In reply to rslifkin :

Not sure what you need but Dirt car Race Tires are made for Qtr. Midgets up to Outlaws and every type Stock car Made, Call Jimmy Smith tires Woodstock Ga.

Bump for duñbrokit