I finally decided to tackle the issue of my tires slipping on the rims when driving on track, causing major imbalance with resulting reduced grip and long term suspension damage. The process:
1. Sand blasting and powder coating the wheels for appearance.
2. Masking the wheels except the area where the tires touch the wheels and applying heavy sand blasting again to improve friction.
Questions:
A. What have you used other than the normal lubricants when installing wheels to eliminate tire slipping on the wheels?
B. Wheel balancing weights fall off due to the high wheel temperatures melting the tape/glue. I usually tape them down with aluminum ventilation duct tape. What is the best materials to use to hold the weights on? Large areas of tape residue are a pain to remove.
C. The wheels get very dirty on the track from brakes and rubber residues. Can you provide suggestions for how to treat the powder coated wheels to make them easier to clean? Wax? PAM?

TIA. Testing outcome at EO January at CHIN Sebring and will report back.

 

What wheels, what tires (sizes/brand) and are we talking. Road course or drag strip?

 

Bad tire slippage with Pirelli Trofeo R in many cars within my friends, including myself. Easy to follow by marking tire where your valve sits.

This hasn't been any problem with any other street legal tires sold in Europe, too bad Trofeo R is also the fastest street tire around here. I believe this could also be problem with Hoosiers.

We have tried many different set of wheels (Porsche OEM slips, OZ slips, BBS slips, Cargraphic slips...), we have tried hair spray, we have tried tire glue, but still the problem continues, not much but very noticeable at higher speeds. HATE IT at the track.

Btw. I tried to start discussion on more track-oriented Rennlist about the topic but didn't got much info, knurled beads should help (available with Finspeed, BBS Racing, HRE etc...), http://rennlist.com/forums/racing-an...page-19-a.html

Tire glue is a product that helps more than just using hair spray for glue, I forgot what my mechanic uses but it's a German product advertised for tractors / offroad.

Please provide pics of your sandblasting process, very interesting! I initially thought about sandblasting the wheel bead, but have heard it may not be enough, I'll try to send my wheels next to a wheel company to process the wheel bead with knurling. Or whatever term it is in English...

 

HotRodGuy asked what wheels and tires on track (doing DE on road coarses like Daytona and Sebring. Answer:
Rear: Stock Turbotwist 11x18 45mm offset, Hoosier R7 315/30-18
Front: Cayman rears 9x18 43 mm offset, clears PSS 19's perfectly and allows the wider tires, Hoosier R7 275/35-18

I run reduced boost of 1.1 - 1.2 bars on the track to improve longevity. Tires slip in opposite direction as expected. Front tires slip under braking, and rears under acceleration.

Again, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

From my Turbo factory manual reference:

Use only TIP TOP Universal, order No. 593 0601 (3.5 kg bucket) or Contifix as the mounting paste!
When mounting tubeless tyres, check the sealing surface of the tyre and the disc wheel for cleanliness and any signs of damage. Bear in mind here that the bead base performs the sealing function on tubeless tyres. If the bead edge has to perform the sealing function, air can escape when the vehicle is driven aggressively.
When mounting the tyre beads, use only the prescribed tyre mounting pastes. The following can occur if an unsuitable mounting paste is used:
• twisting of the tyre on the rim,
• fracture of the bead core during mounting,
• damage to the rim surface by aggressive substances.
If Contifix is used, apply sparingly to the tyre beads (due to risk of the tyre turning on the wheel). If possible, the vehicle should not be driven for 24 hours after tyre mounting or matching.

I'd be afraid with sand blasting of the wheel at where the tire bead seats/seals this would result in a possible tire leak at the bead.

 

Do not under any condition allow any shop to use mounting paste as suggested above. The stuff in the maintenance manual is aimed at street driven cars and as such most shops will do this unless you tell them otherwise as the average grease monkey is totally oblivious to the tire slippage problem. Tip top and other mounting pastes will only aggravate the tire slippage situation at the track. Tip Top actually makes a tire bonding agent which is designed for this exact problem (see picture below). It is only sold in Europe. I special ordered it a while back and tried it. Do not waste your money on it. It did not work well. I still have a can of it in the garage. If you have a competent installer (even my guy at the Porsche dealership does this now), have them use this method instead:

Take a rag and make sure you degrease the tire bead. Plain acetone works well. Clean the wheel bead also. Bring them a small spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol and use that to spray down the tire and wheel just before mounting. The rubbing alcohol will make the tire and bead slippery and easy to mount onto the wheel. It functions as "mounting paste" but it will however quickly evaporate by the time the tire is mounted on the wheel and you are ready to seat the bead. As such, you are essentially dry mounting the tire without the risk of tearing the bead doing so. This method works to a large degree buy you will generally still get slippage. You can also spray on hair spray just prior to seating the bead but I never saw much if any benefit to it over just dry mounting.

What I used instead of the hair spray, once the tire is on the wheel but before the bead is seated, I'd take a bottle of heavy duty 3M contact adhesive spray (available at any home depot / lowes / ace) and spray some along the bead of the wheel/tire. Let it sit for a minute or two and then seat the tire bead as you normally would with air. This will effectively glue the tire to the rim together and eliminate "most" of the slippage. Removing the tire is no issue later, it comes right off. Beyond that there is not much you can do. I had a friend that had a huge issue with his CCW which are very bad with regards to this. He took his CCWs to a body shop and they sprayed a think coat of epoxy paint on his wheel bead. Then they sprinkled some fine grit sand on the bead while still wet and allowed it to dry. This did the trick for him as it made the wheel bead very rough / grippy.

Some guys have successfully used bead blasting to rough up the wheel bead buy I'm not recommend this method as you are taking "meat" away from the wheel bead which makes the diameter a tiny fraction smaller and which in my opinion could aggravate the situation.

I got tired of dealing with tires rotating and dealing with all the band aids. I ended up purchasing several sets of Finspeed wheels that had the bead knurling option on them. This locks the tire on the rim and you will never have any problems. Works like a charm and is the permanent solution...


[url=https://flic.kr/p/q9nDhR]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Cx4Z9j]

 

Thanks for all the good directions provided, as usual especially pwdrhound. This is precise and useful directions.

 

I havent explored it yet but a machine shop could Knurl the bead surface like the finspeed wheels.

heres a link to explain how it works, it could be done to your current wheels if you have a competent machine shop. the process could be done on a Mill or lathe with the right setup.

 

Has anyone tried mounting with rubber cement? I mount a lot of tires and I use a product on customers corroded wheels that is basically a black thick rubber cement to stop bead leaks. Seems like it would work great to secure the bead.

 

I've had decent luck with diluted dish soap, seems to 'flash' off reasonably well and keeps everything squeaky clean...
I find some tire brands are worse than others, Pirelli's seem to be the worst

 

This might be the trick...

 

on our sand drag tires, we use bead sealant its pretty inexpensive. its a nasty black goo but it does hold air on tires with 3psi in them with 100+hp shock loads of alcohol drag bikes/quads/rails

 

Whatever the Porsche techs use it works for my cars. Granted I don't track my cars and they are stock. But the Boxster can generate some serious g's on a hard/panic stop and the Turbo likewise and on the other gas hard throws some serious torque through the rear tires and I have never had a tire spin on the wheel.

It has been some time since I have watched a tech change a Porsche tire but doesn't the tire mounting machine run a bead roller along the wheel bead to separate and lift the tire bead away from the rim? If so my concern would be this would over time dull the knurling and make it less effective.

I'd also be concerned about the tire leaking.

Thus I'm leery of any wheel bead modification.

My preference would be to effect a suitable tire seal and tire to wheel bonding to prevent the tire from spinning on the wheel by some means that did not require modification to the wheel.

 

This isn't something a street car is ever likely to see, track is far far more abuse, not even comparable.

Chevy had this issue with one of their Camaro recently and the production wheels had the bead roughed up, I don't think they used knurling, it was in one of their publicity vids...

 

Unfortunately I get it on the street too