Balancing needed for Drag Radials?

[GTBOB]

Is it necessary to balance drag radials for track use? The reason I ask is that when I had my radials mounted on my Dark Stars, the tire shop put an assload of stick-on weights on the inside of the rim. About 500 grams on each rim. But with the tires aired-down, do you really need wheel weights to cancel out vibration as the sidewall should absorb it?

Sponsored

 

[Need4Speed15]

Do you really have over a pound in wheel weights? That's a lot, check the rim and see if it's bent or warped...or if the tire is out of round. I can tell you I had a set of race stars that had balancing issues and it wasn't fun to drive on them.

 

[bluebeastsrt]

You don't need to balance a tire your only using a 1/4 mile at a time but I would if I was you. It blows my mind when ever they ask me if I want to balance the new slicks on my 95. On a side note it sounds like you may have a defective wheel. If it's that far out of balance.

 

[GTBOB]

Do you really have over a pound in wheel weights? That's a lot, check the rim and see if it's bent or warped...or if the tire is out of round. I can tell you I had a set of race stars that had balancing issues and it wasn't fun to drive on them.

The weights say "25" so I assume that's in grams. There is more of them that you cant see. I actually have some missing as I can see a silhouette of where they once were. The rims and tires were purchased new late last year and have only about 200 miles total so far on them.

I'm going to remove all of them and see how it drives. The tire shop employee that balanced them wasn't exactly a person I would go back to :tsk:.

 

[IvanCRF]

GTBOB,

Are the plastic hub centering rings needed for balancing? I wonder how hard it is to get these Race Stars centered on the machine for balancing without the plastic ring.

Also, are you using the plastic rings on your car? I'm not quite sure how to ensure the wheels are centered without the plastic rings and am in a similar boat.

 

[GTBOB]

IvanCRF,

I am using the plastic rings but I'm not sure if they do anything. The race star wheel is actually centered on the hub by the long shank of the race star lug nuts.

I know the plastic rings were not installed when the wheels were balanced. They were still at home in the bag with the center caps. I would imagine their balancing machine should/could accommodate various styles of hubs.

My theory on why balancing might be worthless is that a drag radial is going to spin on the rim over time, rendering the stationary weights useless. Also, the overall softer compound should absorb any imbalance as the tire deforms (think egg shaped) going down the track. Not sure I am wrong in thinking this way:shrug:.

 

[Super Werty]

The weights say "25" so I assume that's in grams. There is more of them that you cant see. I actually have some missing as I can see a silhouette of where they once were. The rims and tires were purchased new late last year and have only about 200 miles total so far on them.

I'm going to remove all of them and see how it drives. The tire shop employee that balanced them wasn't exactly a person I would go back to :tsk:.

Thats 0.25 so I see 6 grams total. That's alot

 

[Five Oh Brian]

I had my drag radials balanced after about 50 passes, which smoothed them out for about one pass down the strip. My d/r's spin a bit on the rim and I'm not going to screw them to the rims, so I'll settle for a bit of imbalance.

I swap my race wheels onto my car at home, then drive on my d/r's to the track, so that imbalance sucks for the driving on the street, but I keep speeds down until I get to the track.

 

[IvanCRF]

I'm just a noob so if this helps anyone when doing the fronts for skinnies, my Racestars both balanced with three 1/4oz weights on each wheel. My factory wheels have a ton of weights on a few wheels so I am very happy with these Racestars so far.

I had it done at Discount Tire and they came out looking real good. I just need to mount them.

I asked the guy how his machine works when balancing these Racestars. He said his machine uses a cone which expands and fills up the void in the wheel's center to grab the wheel. He said because of this, he didn't need to use any of my mounting hardware whatsoever.


wheel 1:


wheel 2:

 

[V8EATR]

My dark stars took a lot of weight as well.

Sponsored