THORPE

I hear about people filling their car tires all the time. They advertise that it has a lower temp., longer life of the tires, more traction and a better ride.

Always wondered how the would affect stoppies.

Anybody tried it yet?

atl freestyle

or fast circles?!?
i would like to know the affects too

NINER

Snake oil. Unless your tires are heating up so much that your air pressures are changing, you will see no benefit.

N/A

Call Mythbusters.

Herb

Yes this will help. I have raced Karts for 8 years using Nitrogen. Along with my camaro w/mickey thompson slicks. I wouldnt use compressed air in any HP application.
Would it help anything for stunt riding? Doubtful. Your tires do "grow" a bit from a dead startup to finishing a session. Its worth a try. Its cheap and easy enough. Give it a shot.

MikeM

What is the benefit? Is it just because its less thermally conductive than air?

Compton82

The only problem I see is if you wanted to add some pressure. You arent going to have a nitrogen tank handy to add a couple pounds.

Unless Im wrong, I dont think you can mix air and nitrogen in a tire right?

NINER

There is no water vapor in it so it doesn't change volume as much with temperature. They also claim that nitrogen leaks less over time. Like I said, if you aren't heating the tires up enough that the pressure in your tires changes you won't see a benefit.

NINER

Air is mostly nitrogen. You can mix it, but any marnginal performance gain you might see would be gone.

THORPE

I bet it would help the front feel more stable for endos. It supposedly gives you a bigger footprint for traction so I bet that would help the circles too.

I don't have a RUNIING bike to try it out right now or I would deff be the guinnee pig.

Try it out Darrick, It's like $5 a tire. you can fill an air tank with it too for back up and getting your pressure right.

MikeM

I heat my tires up a lot. Ive even thought of getting tire warmers.

cullins

The molecules in nitrogen are larger it so it doesnt leak out like air would. mainly it doesnt change with temperatures. it will not hurt anything to mix with compressed air it just defeats the purpose of the nitrogen.

THORPE

Found this on another forum: http://www.msgroup.org/forums/mtt/to...?TOPIC_ID=2524

I am unaware of any theory to support the claimed advantages of inflation with nitrogen rather than with air, except that corrosion would not occur in the absence of oxygen.

Let us look at the claims in detail:

1) Why should nitrogen leak more slowly? Oxygen molecules are slightly heavier than nitrogen molecules. Thus, one would expect oxygen to leak more slowly than nitrogen. If the numbers given were accurate, then the concentration of nitrogen in tires would increase as leakage occurred and eventually the leakage would decrease to about the same rate as if pure nitrogen were used in the first place.

4) Why would tires filled with nitrogen run cooler? The heat is generated by the flexing of the tire materials, not by the gas used for inflation. So, whether you fill the tires with pure oxygen, nitrogen, helium, argon, or air, the temperature of the tires would be the same. Perhaps one could argue that some gasses would transfer the heat from the tires to the rims better than other gasses, but it doubtful that any difference would be great enough to matter.

5) Yes, nitrogen is more stable, in that it is less reactive chemically, but that has nothing to do with pressure changes. ALL gasses follow the same temperature vs. pressure law, i.e., the pressure changes in direct proportion to changes in absolute temperature. Thus, if you double the absolute temperature and hold the volume constant, the pressure will double. This is true for ALL gasses, a fact which has been known for well over a century.

7) Nitrogen is NOT 100% inert! If it were we could not have nitrogen compounds, such as ammonia, various oxides of nitrogen, explosives, etc. However, when used in tires, it is less reactive than oxygen. The only obvious advantage in normal vehicle applications to its being less reactive is that there would be less corrosion of the rims inside the tires.

There is no reason to expect tires to last longer, under normal operating conditions, if inflated with nitrogen. Tire life is normally determined by the rate of wear of the tread and the gas used for inflation does not come into contact with the tread.

In short, the only advantage I can see to using nitrogen to inflate tires is that it would reduce rim corrosion, assuming that tubeless tires are used. So, unless rim corrosion INSIDE the tires is a problem, it would be only in unspecified and very unusual cases where using nitrogen for inflation would have any advantages.

An effective way to increase tire life is to maintain correct inflation. As has been pointed out, adequate air compressors for home use are not expensive. Since they make maintaining proper inflation more convenient thereby making it more likely that tires will be properly inflated, the cost of an air compressor can probably be justified on an economic basis alone, aside from the safety benefits of maintaining proper tire inflation.

I suspect that the claimed benefits of using nitrogen for inflation were originally made by those few who would benefit from the sale of nitrogen. It is not surprising that news article writers with little technical knowledge would widely disseminate those claims thereby making them appear to be valid; such things happen all the time. The number of articles that support a claim has little to do with the validity of the claim. Often, what appear to be independent articles, are based on the same erroneous source. I’m sure that I am not the only one who could find several examples.

THORPE

guess i answered my own question.

Probly not worth it........

stuntsteel

it might help roll stoppies further... i don't know if it will help u in a circle comp much....

__________________
www.stuntsteel.com

NINER

Helium in your rear tire for stoppies, helium in the front tire for circles. Have to swap out the gases in the tires rear quick between events.

NINER

How does it do that? And don't say "I don't know" or "magic"

THORPE

I don't know but i think it magicaly ...........

No really i don't know but i did hear it on the radio advertisement tho
thats why i said "supposedly"

I posted above ^^^^^ That prety much explains it worthless.

I hadn't researched much before I started the thread.