Get the gas in your tyres!!

[the master]

Hi guys i thought i might share a piece of formula 1 knowledge. some car tyre places are able to put nitrogen into your tyres instead of air. This has huge handling benefits and increases the feel of the road, other benefits include a 15% increase in tyre life and the tyres perform from cold and need no warming. the cost is £1.50 per tyre. I 've had a couple of my cars done including my chim and have noticed,as have many other people, big handling improvements. Its worth checking out
!!

[tvrbob]

But how do these garages know the hot running pressure for you car. It's absolutely the most dangerous thing to do to pressurise your tyres to their 'cold' setting when using dry gas. The 'cold' pressure stated in the handbook takes into account the expansion that occurs as tyres, inflated with air, get hot. Getting tyres to their working temperature also means getting them to their working pressures. Before you do this you must first set your 'cold' pressures to the book value with air then measure the pressure when your tyres are hot. This then needs to be the same pressure for your hot tyres when using dry gas. Dry gas will expand like air but not as much so you need to do some trial and error work to establish what 'cold' pressure will generate your desired 'hot' pressure when using dry gas.

Too many people are playing with this without fully understanding the physics behind it.


>> Edited by tvrbob on Thursday 30th September 08:38

[Tripps]

tvrbob said:

But how do these garages know the hot running pressure for you car. It's absolutely the most dangerous thing to do to pressurise your tyres to their 'cold' setting when using dry gas. The 'cold' pressure stated in the handbook takes into account the expansion that occurs as tyres, inflated with air, get hot. Getting tyres to their working temperature also means getting them to their working pressures. Before you do this you must first set your 'cold' pressures to the book value with air then measure the pressure when your tyres are hot. This then needs to be the same pressure for your hot tyres when using dry gas. Dry gas will expand like air but not as much so you need to do some trial and error work to establish what 'cold' pressure will generate your desired 'hot' pressure when using dry gas. Too many people are playing with this without fully understanding the physics behind it.

The F1 guys have dedicated tyre engineers from the supplier and laptops to model tyre behavior etc. A lot of brain and computer power to work this out. Unless the tyre and car manufacturers release a PSI/bar figure for nitrogen on your car/tyre combination I'd stick with what you know.

You could underfill and damage the sidewall or overfill and cause excessive centre wear - either way you'd have higher tyre bills and and car that didn't handle right.

Otherwise its about the same level as usefulneness as putting a picnic table on the back of a Nova

If however the information on nitrogen pressures is available though I'll eat my boxer shorts (used of course!)

This should probably be in General Gassing BTW

[jeremyc]

For the bargain price of £1 per wheel, I'll fill your tyres with an 80% by volume Nitrogen mix. So, a 33% cost saving but you're only losing out on 20% Nitrogen - form an orderly queue here please.

I've been doing it for years on all my cars and find it provides fantastic handling and grip.

>> Edited by jeremyc on Thursday 30th September 08:49

[RichB]

the master said:

Hi guys i thought i might share a piece of formula 1 knowledge.

This has been done to death on here and the general concensus is that it's nonsense. Someone came up with the most likey reason they use compresses nitrogen for thier tyres not compressed air, but as has been said air is 80% nitrogen anyway! Oh and Boyles Law is true for all gases so it's nothing to do with temperature/expansion etc. Rich...

>> Edited by RichB on Thursday 30th September 09:25

[mel]

If I fill my tyres with Balloon Gas (helium mix) will that make my car lighter and thus give me more bhp/tonne ? It just so happens I have a bottle in the garage

[WildfireS3]

mel said:

If I fill my tyres with Balloon Gas (helium mix) will that make my car lighter and thus give me more bhp/tonne ? It just so happens I have a bottle in the garage

Just out of interest is it true that you're not supposed to inhale balloon gas as it has additives in it that are not good for you?

[mel]

Don't know I was only going to put it in my tyres.

[cptsideways]

jeremyc said:

For the bargain price of £1 per wheel, I'll fill your tyres with an 80% by volume Nitrogen mix. So, a 33% cost saving but you're only losing out on 20% Nitrogen - form an orderly queue here please. I've been doing it for years on all my cars and find it provides fantastic handling and grip. >> Edited by jeremyc on Thursday 30th September 08:49

I see a franchise opportunity, ££££££££££££££££

>> Edited by cptsideways on Thursday 30th September 10:03

[g_attrill]

WildfireS3 said:

Just out of interest is it true that you're not supposed to inhale balloon gas as it has additives in it that are not good for you?

There are no additives in normal balloon gas, which is just pure helium. The main reason why it is risky is because people inhale it repeatedly without breathing any air and pass out

You are possibly thinking of nitrous oxide, which has sulphur added to discourage inhalation, and is much more fun than helium (so I've heard). They very rarely do this in the UK though (so I've heard).

Gareth


>> Edited by g_attrill on Thursday 30th September 10:25

[eharding]

mel said:

Don't know I was only going to put it in my tyres.

It will make your tyres produce high pitched squeaks though....

[mel]

g_attrill said:

There are no additives in normal balloon gas, which is just pure helium.

I know the bottle of Balloon Gas in my garage is not simply pure helium, its a BOC bottle and is badged as "balloon gas" and I believe is some sort of helium mix but I'd need to look on the label to see the % mixes. But yes I've inhaled it without a problem

[mel]

Just looked up the data sheet and balloon gas is a helium/air mix however it does specifically say Do not inhale as it may cause asphixiation for the reasons stated earlier

http://www1.boc.com/uk/sds/

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Your tyres will go flat with helium after a while too.

Solid tyres, that's the way to go

[RobDickinson]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

Solid tyres, that's the way to go

Seen people are working on that.

Plastic (I assume kevlar or something) wheel with strips of rubber around the outside, spring in some way. actualy looked like it could work.

[nasz]

What about hydrogen - the wheels would never tounch the ground

[rev-erend]

I put NO2 in mine .. the tyres laughted them selves off the rims

[wolves_wanderer]

nasz said:

What about hydrogen - the wheels would never tounch the ground

Didn't the Hindenburg prove hydrogen was a bad idea?

[jimmyjimjim]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

Your tyres will go flat with helium after a while too.

Lockheed tried this with the U-2 (desperate to save weight, and gain altitude....they also tried to get the pilots to have an enema before takeoff....equally unsuccesful) they found that the helium bled out through the tires fairly rapidly; not even good enough for a single mission.

[pug406]

jimmyjimjim said:

ThatPhilBrettGuy said: Your tyres will go flat with helium after a while too. they found that the helium bled out through the tires fairly rapidly; not even good enough for a single mission.

That's because the molecules in Helium are much smaller than those in Air