What do you guys recommend as a process / tools for purging tires of air and filling them with nitrogen ?
What do you guys recommend as a process / tools for purging tires of air and filling them with nitrogen ?
well, they are already filled with nitrogen so........
at work on NYE and a little bored.... so correct my math if I'm wrong.
a 195/55/15 tire should be approximately 240ci of volume at atmospheric pressure, which our tire gauge reads as 0. at 30psi, it's theoretically holding 7200ci of air. normal breathable air is ~78% nitrogen, or 5616ci of the air is already nitrogen. Even if you purged that to 0ci of volume (vacuum), and replaced that with 85% nitrogen (which is whats common in most tire shops), you're talking a 7% bump to 6120ci of nitrogen.
It's a scam. I can say I've watched shops take off the black caps and put on the green caps and call it "nitrogen filled".
Technically speaking, the way to do this is by installing a second valve stem on your wheel. You hook up a pump to one of the valve stems to draw air out of the tyre as while you fill it with Nitrogen (or whatever fancy CO2-based mixture that is in vogue these days) through the other one.
There are a few wheels out there that are pre-drilled specifically for this purpose. Like thisTR Motorsports C1M, for example:
Practically speaking, bobzilla is right. Some of these Nitrogen tire fill scams are so blatant that they make my face hurt.
Seat the bead, hook up a vacuum to it, pull it down as far as you can and then fill it with nitro.
The most important part of getting a good fill is to have a dryer on your site compressor line. That will get you > 90% of the way there to the benefits of a (proper) nitrogen fill and way more benefit than just switching your valve stem color :)
Most of the increase of PSI is heat from the flexing sidewalls causing the water vapor on the air inside the tire to expand. Remove the water vapor and there's not too much difference between o2 & N.
In reply to WonkoTheSane (FS) :
You are correct. But a typo at the end. I don't know of anybody running O2 in their tires! but yes, there is very little difference in normal air, and the % of N available outside of a lab. I though of that wen I first saw his question, but I couldn't figure out how to say it without sounding like an azz.
You're stuck on this planet breathing 72% nitrogen.
In reply to Dbracing :
First DO NOT USE WATER on the beads when you install the tires. At best use a wet rag and go over the bead with it, just enough to dampen the rubber. There is a material that tire installers use at the track but it is hard to find and it comes in big cans. I saw the Firestone guys using it at an Indy Car race. They gave me the name of the stuff but I forgot (of course).
To seat the bead use dry air or if you can afford it use nitrogen. Bleed your compressor before installing any air in the tire to avoid moisture.
Once the bead is seated drain the air out of the tire and then bleed it further with a vacuum pump. Then install the nitrogen.
BTW, nitrogen will make your tires slightly lighter but you are better off not eating for a couple of days if you are after weight savings that badly. The nitrogen however does not contain any moisture.
The moisture in tires is not measurable and each tire will heat up on the track at different rates and this will yield different pressure increases. With dry nitrogen, the tire pressures will always grow at the same rate.
APPLIEDSPEED.COM
The goal is to eliminate, or at least reduce the moisture inside the tire. The issue is that it's not consistent so you can't reliably predict how much the pressure is going to increase as the tires come up to temp. You can get dry bottled "standard" air if you want but nitrogen is cheaper.
I use wheels with two valve stems 180 degrees apart. I have my tire guy seat the beads and then let the air back out before sticking the core back in. I pull both cores and let the nitrogen flow through the tire for a minute or so to purge before filling.
In reply to genibrel :
Benefit of vacuuming down the tire to fill them. Vacuum will boil out the water vapor.
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