Modding rubber tired cars?
Im looking for some help or tips for modding the various cars that come with rubber wheels, for example the HW Car Culture cars tend to have them. These molds are often heavy and wonderfully detailed so I'd like to make a few for racing.
Is there anything differnt about them?
Where do most of you tend to buy wheels from?
Discussion
I find its cheaper to find mainline cars for a $1.25 (or less)that have the wheel sizes your looking for. So look around your area for some commonly available castings and take the wheels and axels and swap them into your desired car. If you can even find non-rubber wheels they will be around $2.50 to $3 per set.
Good Luck
The racers dilemma... cool castings with not cool real rider type wheels. Most guys will find wheels they like or feel are fast and buy mainline cars and "farm" the wheels and axle sets and just place the casting aside, discard it or replace with real riders and give them away or display them.
I bought some real rider type wheels and axle sets from Etsy or Aliexpress. I use them to replace the tires of those cars I harvest from and then give those cars I can't use or don't need away... I carry one or two in my pocket and pass them to kids, with their parents permission of course, I see in the store or restaurants. Always get a kick out of seeing a kid get a toy! Of course my great neice and nephew get a large quantity of remade and post race cars!
Personally, I usually don't use metal on metal for open track racing anymore because they're usually heavy already, meaning you're limited when adding more strategic weight for balance. I'll use them for drag racing though. Beaverworx's YT channel has a video or two where Dean shows how he rolls rubber wheels thru epoxy/glue to create a hard shell around the rubber. As far as replacement wheels, like most people I use mainlines.
I heard someone say something in the comments on one of EPVideos YouTube posts about putting one set of plastic wheels on the front, and the car was able to make it down the track ok. Probably wouldn't be as fast though. Still, it's a cool idea for a tournament.
Smalls all around, but could be an 1/8th mile banger.
For the most part, the mainline version of the premium model have the size wheels. I just buy a couple of the mainline versions )to have the best chance at nice round wheels) and then put them on the premium version. Easy peezy lemon squeezy :)
Beaverworx sent a car to my originals outlaws series with rubber wheels that he'd rolled in superglue. Worked pretty well and got round the corners but wasn't the fastest compared to the plastic wheels
- I've seen his videos modding M2 and Greenlight cars this way so they could roll. Have to give respect for the ingenuity! — Chris_Hood
Metal/Metal is always the better option to pursue when picking a race car candidate. Just wheel swap to plastic wheels and put in the same work necessary to make the axles competitive. A lot of us use Pop Culture cars as well.