Drifting is one of the most fun activities you can perform with the help of your RC car. You should definitely try out RC car drifting because you really get to put your RC car to the test.
First of all, you should make some changes to your car, so you can perfectly adapt it to this driving and handling style.
You need to tune some of the most important car parts, such as the engine, brakes, shocks or tires in order to adapt them to drifting. While some parts can be simply bought and installed in your RC car, you can easily tune some settings or components according to your wishes. Making drifting tires is one thing you can do to prepare for such a race. There are still prefabricated tires available on the market, but it’s still cheaper to make them yourself.
As drifting evolved in the RC car world, so did RC car drifting tires, because manufacturers experimented with several materials to see which was best. First, there was rubber, but rubber drifting tires had too much grip and didn’t handle very well over a long period of time. Next came hard plastic tires, but they offered virtually no traction at all, so they weren’t the best solution at all, even if they had a lifespan of several years.
The perfect solution for drifting tires came next because the best tires for this driving technique are made out of polyethylene. It looks and feels just like a hard plastic drifting tire, but this material offers the perfect traction for drifting. Also, polyethylene tires work on almost any surface, except very slippery ones, such as supermarket floors.
If you want to make your own drifting tires, you need to know one simple and extremely important fact: the key to getting the perfect tire is matching the traction to your particular style of drifting.
That being said, there are several methods of making your own drifting tires. One particular method is the tape method. Tape lets you control exactly how much traction you get from each tire. You can customize each tire individually to suit your preferences, or you can modify tires by sets. However, there is another drawback. Tape doesn’t last too long, because it unwinds quickly. How do you do it? You can wrap only the outside of the tire and leave the center strip tape tape-free. By changing the amount of rubber which enters into contact with the road, you can adjust your traction. Another way of doing it is by taping the center and leaving the edges free, a method which is highly preferred by many RC car enthusiasts. Just remember to wrap the tire in the same direction the tire rolls because otherwise, it will unravel after just a few minutes of running.
Another preferred method is the one which uses a PVC pipe. First of all, you need to measure the diameter of your rims and get a PVC pipe with the exact same diameter. Cut the pipe into sections and sand the edges until they are smooth. File down the outside edges so that they don’t catch anything when you drift. Then, you need to cool the rim and heat up the tire. Slip the PVC sections on the rims and, as the tires cool and the rims heat up, they will form a tight fit. No need to use glue for this operation. You can drop all four drift wheels into some cold water because the PVC will contract.
Now you know what to do when you want to start drifting. Just remember to take care of that all-important traction your RC car needs when you start drift racing.
