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How much of a difference do the low friction wheel bearings/low drag seals really make? Looking to make improvements in off season. Have some money, but not a ton to buy anything major. This is steel block, 650hp going against open motors. Can hang near middle of pack now.
If they do make a difference, do I need the super fancy setup with the adjustable sleeve and such from DRP, or will just getting the bearings and seals make a difference?
Worth the money?
there not gone move you from mid pac to the front , they may help a tiny bit , but i feel the money can be better spent by a budget minded racer , a good moly based grease will help just as much , i am sure you will get more opinions as usual but this is mine.....
I've never seen Actual test results but i can tell you in he car rolling around during hot laps is noticeable. I think the spacers make a bigger difference then the low drag bearings. Bernhiesel racing has a nice kit that's priced well. It comes with low drag bearings, seal, nut and retaining plate with bolts and a enough grease for that assembly. I think it's around 70$ a wheel he also had house brand spacers for 20-30$a piece if i remember correctly. Side note the spacers are nice because once their set you can snatch a hub of for maintenance and throw it back together without having to set preload. Not that that's difficult but it's one less thing you have to worry about it your help is green or less experienced we've been getting two seasons out of them without issue and replacing them as a preventative measure only
I've never seen Actual test results but i can tell you in he car rolling around during got laps is noticeable. I think the spacers make a bigger difference then the low drag bearings. Bernhiesel racing has a nice kit that's priced well. It comes with low drag bearings, seal, nut and retaining plate with bolts and a enough grease for that assembly. I think it's around 70$ a wheel he also had house brand spacers for 20-30$a piece if i remember correctly. Side note the spacers are nice because once their set you can snatch a hub of for maintenance and throw it back together without having to set preload. Not that that's difficult but it's one less thing you have to worry about it your help is green or less experienced
http://www.4m.net/showthread.php?398...02#post2337102
Note: I listed #2 and #3 backwards, sorry
On a side note: You will gain more speed/lap time reduction in testing at one of the tracks you run at then all the nice parts will ever gain. I don't think I have ever tested with a new person and never gained something in the area of 3 tenths and usually more if they never tested at all ever.
So 3 or 4 hundred on parts vs renting a track (I know it's gonna cost way more then that) is not even comparable in terms of potential gains
i always find this one crazy, spacers nothing else, brake drag is way more of an issue but may need it at some tracks (it helps sometimes)
set up, heims, shocks, testing
light weight stuff is ok to a point, but i always see a ton of wasted money on silly things, hell a nice body can be worth a tenth or two
most people won't test but spend a ton everywhere else
testing is where its at, but be very prepared and have everything ready to bolt on and change out easy
if you are running against new top engines its going to be hard to keep up qualifying and heat races, in the feature you'll have to be spot on to run them down
most today have 750-900 hp depending on what they have (some in the 950 range now)
I understand all that you ae saying. Thanks for the help. Nice to be told the reality from boots on the ground. I'm just looking to make some improvements. I imagine buying a nice selection of new tires would probably be money much better invested. I may go with the low drag seals and maybe the bearings, but definitely some good moly grease.
So, preload is always mentioned. What is the correct procedure for mounting hubs anyways. I always just greased the spindle, slid the hub on, then tightened the nut until the hub wouldn't spin free, then backed it off a turn, then put the lock ring on. I imagine that is completely wrong....
i dont back off a whole turn , but thats basically how i do it...
Just an fyi
Moly grease on any roller bearing is a bad thing.
Moly is great for bushings or sliding surfaces. The reason being is that it builds up on the surface, removing clearance. Good for bushings, bad for roller bearings.
At work we have moly grease, and a blue non moly grease.
The parts girl came up with a mnemonic device.
Black bush, Blue balls.
Works great to help remember.
i dont think moly grease will ever cycle enough to " build up " on a race car that gets regular maintenance , been using it for years and never seen this , i have looked at the new synthetic grease that claims to reduce friction more than any thing but have not tried it yet....
I have mobil moly at work that we use for concrete hammer/breakers. It says right on the tube that it's good for high speed bearings aswell. I don't know wday classifies a "high speed" bearing but we've been using it on trailer bearings that are 5000#pounds axles that see every bit of that daily for close to ten years now and had no problems
Grease was dead last on things that effected the rolling resistance, so far down the list it's doubtful it has any effect on the car at all. The amount of grease had more effect on it, then the type of grease did.
Like I said bearing spacers where by far the biggest reduction in rolling resistance
JFYI
have you tried the synthetic stuff billet ? i dont know much about it , BTW , i still cant wrap my head around how the spacer helps with a tapered brg that requires some pre load , to me , the outside rt side bearings are getting the most load as the car goes around the track , how does the spacer reduce this ???
I'm far from a engineer but in my head your locking the two inner races together making them act as essentially one assembly and eliminating all possible movement/ play. Any play or movement can be directly related to bind. And bind equals fiction. As i stated above i don't know if they'd show anything on a stop watch but you can feel the difference in the car and to me any thing you can feel is worth having jmoQuote:
Originally Posted by fastford
Like I said a friend (owns a large company that does stuff like this) build a dyno to test the rolling friction of the wheel/hub assembly and tested just about everything out there.Quote:
Originally Posted by fastford
The grease was the last on the list that made much difference, especially grease type. The amount of grease used had way more effect then ordinary everyday greases vs the high dollar super greases.
I wouldn't have thought that the wheel bearing spacers would have made that much difference, but he says out of anything you can do it is the largest single gain there is. Shrugs
He can also turn the tire while running the tests to induce side loads on the hub assembly also, I know he tested just about every scenario out there and multiple times and ways
im not gone dispute your friends findings billet , i have never seen a wheel dyno , but i do under stand how a tapered bearing works , and looking at it from jkings example , i dont see what the sleeve would have to do with reduced friction on a tapered bearing when you are nearly constantly loading the out side brg on the right and the inner brg on left , now i could understand this working with a ball brg , but just cant see it.....
With the bearings tightened against the sleeve (assuming the sleeve is machined 100% parallel) the bearings are now 100% true and held 100% parallel to each other. Where if there wasn't a sleeve there, the bearings can tilt or angle whatever the clearance between the snout OD and the bearing ID can allow. So when loaded they could tilt 0 to 3 degree's (making up a number here) so you could have the bearings angled as well as the hub angled thus the bearings and races not 100% mated properly. With the spacers the bears are 100% parallel and true and can't (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) sideways do to the added length between the bearings and the snout (3/4" width on bearings vs clearance to snout over the 2 bearings together locked to spacer vs the clearance to snout).Quote:
Originally Posted by fastford
Hope that makes it clearer, like sliding a 1" wide sleeve over a shaft with .003" of clearance and see how much it can tilt vs the same sleeve over the same shaft with same .003" clearance but the sleeve is now 6" long. It would be like 5 degrees vs .1 degree (made up numbers but shows what I mean)
i see what your saying , i guess thats why they have a crush sleeve or spacer on the pinion of a differential , BTW , thanks billet , thats the best explanation i have seen yet,,,,,