Anyone local heat cycle tires???

[WRXlerate]

Was hoping someone knew of a place in town that heat cycles tires?

[AtomicLabMonkey]

I'm sure quite a few of these guys would be willing to strap some new tires on their car and go 'heat cycle' them for you, for a minimal fee.

[MattR]

A few years ago (like 8 years) I looked everywhere and only found one shop in Sparks (Silver State) that would even shave them, but never anyone who heat cycles them. Silver State has since been sold, and I don't know that anyone does.

I'm not familiar with the process for artificially heat cycling tires, but I wonder if a powder coater could do them in the oven?

[knucklesplitter]

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=66

[WRXlerate]

I was going to buy them from discount tire since they had $100 rebate going today. They would have had to send them out to cycle them. The guy I was dealing with was a douche and pissed me off so I left. I didn't see the tires I wanted on tireracks website so I'll have to call them to see if they can get them, the 800# operates on east coast time. Discounttiredirect also does it but I was hoping I could find one locally. Thanks for the input.

[A1337STI]

a cheap, slow, lame solution ... :

Make a solar convection oven.

YouTube

YouTube

he hit 380. I'd think you would want about 200F to heat cycle a tire make it just big enough to fit 1 tire. sure not perfectly ideal but it could easily be done...

you could literally just line a cardboard box with tin foil . put saran wrap over the top and the 4 "tops" could also be lined for a bit of a reflector. probably cost you $1 (if you already have a box) i have a box large enough for a tire if you need one, or are actually interested in my horrible idea...

[sperry]

Originally Posted by A1337STI

a cheap, slow, lame solution ... :

Make a solar convection oven.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt1DgZp0n2g

he hit 380. I'd think you would want about 200F to heat cycle a tire make it just big enough to fit 1 tire. sure not perfectly ideal but it could easily be done...

you could literally just line a cardboard box with tin foil . put saran wrap over the top and the 4 "tops" could also be lined for a bit of a reflector. probably cost you $1 (if you already have a box) i have a box large enough for a tire if you need one, or are actually interested in my horrible idea...

You're kidding right? Heat cycling isn't done in an oven. It's done by stretching the tire.


http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=66

Notice the rollers around the tire, stretching it as it spins?

Besides, if heat was all it took, why would you try to use a reflective solar oven (that wouldn't work unless it was many many times larger than the tire, you know so the sun would be able to shine around the tire and focus on a large tire sized object) when you could just put the tire in your oven in the kitchen?

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Even the rollers are not perfect, as ideally you'd want to generate heat in the tire in the same manner that it's generated while on the car - from lateral & longitudinal slip. To do that on a machine requires a sliding belt element and belt testers are very large & expensive pieces of laboratory equipment. Those rollers will work the rubber, but in a different way. It's still better than an oven though.

This is why race teams will go out and run a few easy laps on new tires during test or practice sessions to break them in. As long as you have the track time available it's best to just do it on the car.

[A1337STI]

uhm, ya , sure i'm kidding...

I thought the point of heat cycling was just that literrally the tire heating up to (say 220F) release some of the solvents from the tire, giving you a tire with a better level of solvents.

kind of like how using tire enhancer on an old tire makes it better. (it puts the solvents back in that on an old tire has lost much of)

[sperry]

Originally Posted by A1337STI

uhm, ya , sure i'm kidding...

I thought the point of heat cycling was just that literrally the tire heating up to (say 220F) release some of the solvents from the tire, giving you a tire with a better level of solvents.

kind of like how using tire enhancer on an old tire makes it better. (it puts the solvents back in that on an old tire has lost much of)

Per the TireRack link above:

The first time a competition tire is used is the most important. During that run, its tread compound is stretched, some of the weaker bonds between the rubber molecules will be broken (which generates some of the heat). If the tires are initially run too hard or too long, some of the stronger bonds will also be broken which will reduces the tire's grip and wear qualities. Running new tires through an easy heat cycle first, and allowing them to relax allows the rubber bonds to relink in a more uniform manner than they were originally manufactured. It actually makes them more consistent in strength and more resistant to losing their strength the next time they are used. An important heat cycling step is that after being brought up to temperature, the tires require a minimum of 24 to 48 hours to relax and reform the bonds between their rubber molecules.

It's not at all heat related... it's about stretching the rubber. Stretching just happens to heat up the tire, and that's an easy way to measure the break-in, so it's called a "heat cycle"... but the heat is the byproduct of breaking in the tire, not the purpose/catalyst.

[A1337STI]

ah. so its really a "break-in stretch" ... hmmm quite interesting