Do you balance the wheels on your racing car?

[Brad Roberts]

Balance them. Clean the wheels thoroughly prior to having them balanced. Remove ALL traces of tape/glue/rubber.

The first job given to team newbies for EVERY RACING team in the world.. is wheel cleaner. They are cleaned prior to every single dismount/mount.

Customers paying me to attend track events? I clean the wheels between every round and make sure the weights are taped on after they return from mount/balance.

It takes 5min per wheel. I set them partially into a trash barrel and scrape off the clag

Walk up to any of my cars on grid, and look into the wheels.. spotless..

Jitts:

your way way behind on the GT3 wheels... you have to scuff the area on the rims that the bead sits on. Then.. you have to instruct your mount balance guy to not utilize so much damn LUBE during install. Real race shops/track install guy's use a different lube that evaporates quickly and they know not to use a ton of the sh_t on Hoosiers/Kuhmo's/Toyo's/Slicks.

too many times I have seen people have wheels powder coated, then watch the tires slip big time on the rim throwing the balance off. They have to be scuffed.. all of them.. when generating the braking force of a GT3

I mark all of my wheels at the valve stem with an arrow.. for this exact purpose.. to see if my tire guy is using too much lube

[Brad Roberts]

BY the way.. this is personal preference. I have not met a diver yet that "likes" to have a unbalanced set of wheels running around the track.

The real issue is: if the wheels are unbalanced, how am I going to be able to tell if there is another issue with the car? Wheel bearings going bad can cause a imbalance, axles coming loose can cause a vibration, rear main bearing in the engine going bad can cause a vibration.. lots and lots of reason to balance the wheels to eliminate them from masking another problem.



B

[Jittsl]

Originally Posted by Brad Roberts

Jitts:

your way way behind on the GT3 wheels... you have to scuff the area on the rims that the bead sits on. Then.. you have to instruct your mount balance guy to not utilize so much damn LUBE during install. Real race shops/track install guy's use a different lube that evaporates quickly and they know not to use a ton of the sh_t on Hoosiers/Kuhmo's/Toyo's/Slicks.

too many times I have seen people have wheels powder coated, then watch the tires slip big time on the rim throwing the balance off. They have to be scuffed.. all of them.. when generating the braking force of a GT3

I mark all of my wheels at the valve stem with an arrow.. for this exact purpose.. to see if my tire guy is using too much lube

Thanks Brad, as it is I no longer track the GT3 so not an issue anymore. When I did track it we tried all sorts of tricks and eventually I just gave up and stopped worrying about wheel balance. As I said at the start I have a very inexpensive guy so I do balance the Boxster's tires. Having said that, am I the only guy out there that finds that after a session or 2 between flat spots and built up junk etc. they are way out of balance anyway? Do other people balance tires between replacements?