Well I’m one of the few people that got a complete set of RC4WD Ruff Rider tires to test. I’ll be running them at a track to see how they perform (Tire hook up, durability, etc) I talked with Mike from RC4WD and he said to do a review on these tires (good or bad) and put it in the RC4WD section. I’ll take plenty of pictures and even a video.
First Look/Assembly
Me personally I really like the looks of the tires, the rears look like they should do great but the fronts look like they won’t get enough bite going around a track (looking forward to see how they do). I bought a complete set of DB’s mounted (cheaper than buying all of the parts separate). So I disassembled the DB’s and started mounting the RR’s, when comparing the DB’s to the RR’s, the RR’s seem harder and not a stretchy as the DB’s. I used ducked tape to tape the foams and the inner part of the RR’s (like I do on all of my tires trying to prevent tire ballooning) The interlocking nubs on the RR that got between the bead lock and the rims seemed a little small, I don’t know how will this effect the tire performance (again we’ll see). When the RR’s were all mounted up and ready to roll they had that hollow sound . The Fronts mounted up fine (I’m using standard foams and not molded foams).
Here are some pictures before I bash the snot out of them
About the track:
The track where I ran these tires was loose dirt with patches of hard pack . This track is a clay/dirt mix .
Running at the track:
I was taking it easy going around the track (not sure how the tires would handle) and the tires work very well, plenty of bite from the rear tires and I was surprized to see that the fronts were doing well. I started going harder into the turns and trying to get out of the turn under power. The rear tires dug in and I took off , the fronts were diging in but not as good as I would like (slite pushing in the turns) . I was tring harder and harder to really push these tire to the edge but they were doing great nothing really changed, the baja it was very predictable though out the day (turns) . After running at the track for about 2 hours I thought I would check out the wear on the tries .... there was really no wear at all , I was very surprized.
I did a couple high speed passes ,some power slides, even a few doughts on tarmac!!, after that the rear tires started to show some wear the fronts were fine. I took the baja back on the track, now the track was really moist because of the steady drizzle that we were having . The track was perfect for running (no dust and plenty of tire hook up) . I was still pushing my baja hard but with that much rear tire hook up the fronts were just skating across the dirt , so I had to slow down a bit in the turns. . We wraped it up for the day because the rain was getting heavy.
Pictures from the track
Conclusion:
I'm very happy with these tires, they are a softer rubber but because of that they offer great traction. When it stared raining the track turn to a kinda mud/paste . With the RR tires they self cleaned due to the tread pattern, they worked great I had no issues with mud sticking to the tire. I did not see much if any tire ballooning , not even in the pics that were taking .
Rear tires :
They look great and proform very well . The only problem that I had one of the nubs poped out (see picture below). Wear was very good.
Front Tires:
Are a different story they look great but it seems that they let that baja tend to skate across the dirt making steering very hard, they need lugs or a ribbed pattern to help the steering
PICTURES:
Rear tire wear
Rear bead lock nub
as you can see 1 nub came out
Front tire wear
Video:
Sorry for the poor quality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqOWLpTZ4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeZtW9v_8Yk
Ruff Riders Tire Review
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