EvanB wrote:wae wrote:cghstang wrote: We probably would need to try really low pressures on the rear of the Miata and get some kind of magical front tire that would stay clear of mud and allow turning and stopping in slime.I believe that what you describe are called "skis". :)
Exactly my train of thought when I grooved my hankooks, they are basically siped paddles, I have excellent traction in the thickest of mud.
cghstang wrote: So how do you turn or stop with the front wheels in the air?
hydraulic turning brakes to brake the rear wheels individually.
I used a couple of old Lassas that one had every other set of blocks cut, and the other had every third set cut. They seemed to work pretty well, but I'm also FWD.
fidelity101 sounds like he's got the right idea on a rwd drive car. Maybe make cuts across the tires for the rear, and around the circumference for the front. I'm sure the fronts would get trashed fast, so maybe look for a hard compound.
BTW - did a quick check, it looks like Dmack USA still has some tires available on the site, or are they out when you call them? I'm thinking of picking up two new Medium DMG3's before nationals, so I can cut a couple of my soft tires for mud.
Oh yeah, I seem to recall Chris Greenhouse was running Snow/Ice rally tires at 100 Acre Wood this year in his SRT-4, and getting very good traction compared to others running gravel tires. It was a pretty sloppy mess out there.
I can't remember which brand/model he was using though, just not Dmacks.
eastsidemav wrote: fidelity101 sounds like he's got the right idea on a rwd drive car. Maybe make cuts across the tires for the rear, and around the circumference for the front. I'm sure the fronts would get trashed fast, so maybe look for a hard compound.
That's what I did on my old set:
eastsidemav wrote: Oh yeah, I seem to recall Chris Greenhouse was running Snow/Ice rally tires at 100 Acre Wood this year in his SRT-4, and getting very good traction compared to others running gravel tires. It was a pretty sloppy mess out there. I can't remember which brand/model he was using though, just not Dmacks.
Studded tires aren't allowed for rallycross though - was he using the studs?
irish44j wrote:eastsidemav wrote: Oh yeah, I seem to recall Chris Greenhouse was running Snow/Ice rally tires at 100 Acre Wood this year in his SRT-4, and getting very good traction compared to others running gravel tires. It was a pretty sloppy mess out there. I can't remember which brand/model he was using though, just not Dmacks.Studded tires aren't allowed for rallycross though - was he using the studs?
Nope, no studs. For some reason now, Yokohama is coming to mind, but I can't swear that was the brand he was using. Also, whatever he was using may be discontinued. The Dmacks are 205/65/15, and that's probably too big for my car, so to go that route, I'd need to find another source, which at this point probably means finding someone who will ship from Europe.
irish44j wrote: But if you're only using them in MUD conditions, they probably won't wear very fast. Just don't use them on dry/gravel days.
It WAS a mud event where I killed them.
Granted, I did win my class.
irish44j wrote:eastsidemav wrote: fidelity101 sounds like he's got the right idea on a rwd drive car. Maybe make cuts across the tires for the rear, and around the circumference for the front. I'm sure the fronts would get trashed fast, so maybe look for a hard compound.That's what I did on my old set:
Mine are a bit more open than that (in areas) but the blocks are a lot smaller.
I basically took the existing design/tread pattern and cut the blocks in half and staggered them, some portions I would cut ever other block out or cut every block but have a left and right bias or something. Then flipped the blade around (to have 2 individual blades instead of a hoop) and went around the tire a few laps. My blocks are small and they wear but the grip is still pretty incredible.
Knurled wrote:irish44j wrote: But if you're only using them in MUD conditions, they probably won't wear very fast. Just don't use them on dry/gravel days.It WAS a mud event where I killed them. Granted, I *did* win my class.
You likely killed them because you have way too much power! lol
irish44j wrote:eastsidemav wrote: fidelity101 sounds like he's got the right idea on a rwd drive car. Maybe make cuts across the tires for the rear, and around the circumference for the front. I'm sure the fronts would get trashed fast, so maybe look for a hard compound.That's what I did on my old set:
Hm. I still have those 4 tires Eastsidemav gifted me late last year, unmounted and collecting dust since I was gifted the other set already mounted (when I was really only fishing for rims to use.) I must be really "gifted".
Jerry, bring some tires over some time and I will teach you everything I know about the ways of the groover.
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This is what a Nokian mud tire (or is that tyre?) used in WRC looks like.
cghstang wrote: Jerry, bring some tires over some time and I will teach you everything I know about the ways of the groover.
And I've got a manual tire machine that does pretty well with 14" rally tires, so grab some rims and next time you're passing through we can mount 'em up!
jstein77 wrote:
That's not a mud tyre. This is a mud tire!
Technically, they're called mud/snow tires on the sidewall. Other MUD rally tires look like this: 
or
I may have been mildly obsessed with rally/rallycross mud tires for the last 5 years or so.
wae wrote:cghstang wrote: Jerry, bring some tires over some time and I will teach you everything I know about the ways of the groover.And I've got a manual tire machine that does pretty well with 14" rally tires, so grab some rims and next time you're passing through we can mount 'em up!
berkeleying sweet. Guess I'm on a hunt for 14" rims again.
I'm resurrecting a long-dormant thread:
I've been running snow tires on my Outback Sport RallyCross car for the last two seasons. They work OK in the dry and are terrible in the mud. For this season I intend to stay in the stock AWD class in one region and race prepared AWD in another. That opens up tire options for the PA races. I'm thinking about what I might do for mud races in the region where I'm running PA since the snows are lousy when that course is muddy. The best solution would be to buy a set of rally tires in a tread pattern designed for mud. Or maybe even a more versatile set of rally tires that would be better than the snows in all conditions. I have a set of 15" wheels on hand for this eventuality.
My current stupid idea: I have a set of 14" snow tires on steelies that were on the car when I bought it. I'm considering hacking out a bunch of lugs to open up the tread pattern so that it can shed mud better and maybe not turn into a slick immediately. The tread depth wouldn't be so great but it has to be better than the uncut snow tires, right? Anyone have any experience with this? Is it worth a couple of hours of garage time to cut up a set (or maybe just the front two)?
You guys run when it's muddy?
Most regions stopped doing that because it shreds sites and ends up being an unfun exercise in cone avoidance rather than competitive driving. The only times I've run in mud lately were when it was a national level event and canceling was not an option because people had already made plans to travel long distance to get there.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:You guys run when it's muddy?
Most regions stopped doing that because it shreds sites and ends up being an unfun exercise in cone avoidance rather than competitive driving. The only times I've run in mud lately were when it was a national level event and canceling was not an option because people had already made plans to travel long distance to get there.
Yup. It's not really deep mud - more like a few inches of greasy mud over a hard base. To steal the best quote I've seen in a while, "it's faster than a set of bleachers" but not by much.
I want to go to there.
They do make a siping tool for tires that will do what you're asking. I used one once to cut up some tires for stage rally and it's not the most unpleasant task in the world, but it's not great, either. It's basically like a hot knife that you use to cut out every other tread block - or whatever pattern you think would work best.
cghstang said:wae wrote:EvanB wrote: FWIW I usually prefer the gravel tires even in muddy conditions. I have never felt that the big mud tires helped much. Maybe if we were able to run them in the front as well I could tell the difference.I realize it's apples and oranges, but I find a huge difference with having them on the front only with FWD.I ran the same big mud tires on the front of my ZX-2 that we've run on the rear of the Miata.
I'll agree with both of you.
They haven't helped as much as I thought they would on the Miata and they were amazing on the front of the Ford Econobox. We probably would need to try really low pressures on the rear of the Miata and get some kind of magical front tire that would stay clear of mud and allow turning and stopping in slime.
They were magical on the RX-7 too.
According to the track operator, I was turning faster laps than the side by side racers the previous weekend in the dry, with no lifting for the tabletop jump. The metrics data was garbled (it had a weird lag so I didn't add it) but I was hitting 60+ in spots per the GPS data. And the people watching said that I got three feet of air at the tabletop on my first complete lap, which influenced where we placed the start and finish lines when we finally set up a course and began the event 
(PS - Getting not enough air over a jump to meet the downslope hurts)
Track was muddy enough that 4wd trucks were getting stuck.
It's a shame that the car isn't useful anymore. The tires were also awesome on soupy grass.
I can't remember what tires I was running for this, but for early May it was probably some kind of all terrain. Ignore the 4wd induced understeer in the tight spots, but running on mud isn't so bad depending on the type of mud and how solid the substrate under it is. When the mud gets sticky, wheel speed starts to matter for keeping the tires clear, especially if they don't have a super open tread pattern. A bit lower pressure helps too, as the additional tire flexing helps to knock the mud out of the tread. In particular, non-driven wheels can be a problem for packing up until you're moving fast enough to throw the mud clear, as you can't just spin them to clear the tires.
Note the camera is up high on the windshield and this is in the Jeep, so perspective makes it look a bit slower than reality (the fisheye gopro lens doesn't help either). Someone got a video from behind of one of my starts at that event, but I can't find it.
rslifkin said:I can't remember what tires I was running for this, but for early May it was probably some kind of all terrain. Ignore the 4wd induced understeer in the tight spots, but running on mud isn't so bad depending on the type of mud and how solid the substrate under it is. When the mud gets sticky, wheel speed starts to matter for keeping the tires clear, especially if they don't have a super open tread pattern. A bit lower pressure helps too, as the additional tire flexing helps to knock the mud out of the tread. In particular, non-driven wheels can be a problem for packing up until you're moving fast enough to throw the mud clear, as you can't just spin them to clear the tires.
Note the camera is up high on the windshield and this is in the Jeep, so perspective makes it look a bit slower than reality (the fisheye gopro lens doesn't help either). Someone got a video from behind of one of my starts at that event, but I can't find it.
In the video I posted above, it doesn't just look slow - it was slow. I was tiptoeing around at a snail's pace to avoid cones and that was good for a win. I was working start that day and had to push a bunch of cars just to get them moving. The surface is like talcum powder when dry and super slick when wet.
The videos of the RX7 with mud tires are intriguing. I would love to get that kind of forward bite.
Odds are that I won't get around to doing anything, but I do intent to try cutting lugs out of the 14" snows as an experiment. I glanced at them yesterday - the edges are still good and sharp and not worn much at all.
Motojunky said:In the video I posted above, it doesn't just look slow - it was slow. I was tiptoeing around at a snail's pace to avoid cones and that was good for a win. I was working start that day and had to push a bunch of cars just to get them moving. The surface is like talcum powder when dry and super slick when wet.
The videos of the RX7 with mud tires are intriguing. I would love to get that kind of forward bite.
Odds are that I won't get around to doing anything, but I do intent to try cutting lugs out of the 14" snows as an experiment. I glanced at them yesterday - the edges are still good and sharp and not worn much at all.
That was kinda the issue I had that day. Crawl through the turns trying not to slide into the cones or too far off course, as with the low traction and 4wd I couldn't get it to rotate at all, it just wanted to push and didn't have enough lateral grip up front to get around the tighter turns at any reasonable speed. Lateral grip in mud seemed to be a weak point of the tires I was running as well, but it was putting down power just fine on the straighter stuff and braking wasn't bad either. So it became a game of crawl through a tight section, then rocket off to the next corner as fast as possible before slowing back to a crawl to get through it.
Cutting some lugs out to open up the gaps will certainly help clear mud out of the tires with less wheel speed. That'll help some for drive traction, but it'll especially help bite on non-driven tires. Texture of the mud will still matter. If the mud is really sticky and greasy with nothing better to dig down to underneath it'll still be a pretty low traction surface unfortunately.
Are you trying to stay stock legal? The only thing I have found with a wide enough tread spacing and stock legal are some weird off brand 14" wheel, 25.5" tall mud terrain tires. Grooving, cutting, siping, retreads, and anything else that is fun is not allowed in stock.
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