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Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:39 am

I often see posts on here from guys trying to find someplace that can balance the wide 5 wheels. Well I may have a different solution for you!

A little background - I have been involved with gravity racing for the last 5 years and have been looking for a better way to deal with trying to balance our wheels and tires. I think I found it.

A while back I came across a product called Dyna Beads. Dyna Beads are small ceramic beads which can be used inside the tire or even inside the tube.

I first had customers bringing me the Dyna Beads to put in their tires during mounting. Then I started buying them from a not so local motorcycle shop (lots of motorcycles use these things). Well they were either closed, or didn’t have what I needed in stock most of the time, so I ended up becoming a dealer for these things as well just so I would have them for my customers when they wanted them.

Last year I won 8 out of 10 races on our schedule. And in one of the races I lost, I was driving a different car then my own which by the way did win that race. So my car won 9 out of the 10 races we ran last year.

I decided to give these Dyna Beads a try in my race car. I was pretty skeptical going in. But in our first race this year, I was pretty amazed at the difference it made in the car.
I did finish second due to a mechanical failure, but the car which beat me was also running Dyna Beads for the first time.

These things really worked! The car was much smoother then it has been in the past. And while I don’t have a comparison time from previous years, the guy who beat me does and he was almost a full second quicker on this hill then he was the last time we ran it.

So the other day I went out and put them in the tires on my 55. The car is almost all original, neglected, worn out. So I wasn’t expecting to feel any difference especially since I had the wheels and tires mounted by the guy who does all my race tires for the big race cars.

But on our first drive, the wife asked what was different. She didn’t know I put the beads in, but she felt an improvement in the ride.

So anyway I figured I’d pass this information along so anybody thinking about getting their tires balanced could think about this as an alternative to a shop that doesn’t have an adapter to do the wide 5’s.

They can be put in while one bead is off the rim, or even through the valve stem pretty easily.

Almost any bike shop that caters to Honda Gold Wing riders and does tire service sells them. Or you can get them from me at;
http://www.alliedmotorsports.us/id57.html

These things work! You will need about 3 ounces per tire for stock size tires. Thats about $10, but they are reusable if you recover them when it's time for new tires.

Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:47 am

The tire shop I go to was able to balance the wide five rim, BUT the weight strip fell off one of the rims already. (They used the adhesive backed weights) I hadn't even driven the car yet and they fell off, kind of upsetting!

How do these dyna beads work? Rotational inertia?

Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:49 am

I saw these a while back and wondered about them. Any max MPH rating? I seem to remember somone saying that at high speed (ok, a lot higher than most of us) his car would get the shakes, but that may have been a similar product that was in-between liquid and solid...

Worth a shot for sure, but wont help a lot of people who's rims are actually bent and might not even know it. I swear almost every smoothie wheel I've see on a machine is a little bent

Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:53 am

My feable brain is struggling with the physics... I'm wondering if it is only beneficial at highway-ish speeds? Is there a difference in performance and/or benefit if you are going 50mph as opposed to 10mph?

Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:58 am

Here's how they work. It's one of those things that takes a while for your brain to understand and just seems backwards.
http://www.alliedmotorsports.us/id58.html

I haven't seen anything about maximum RPM, or any sort of problems associated with high speeds. And I spent a lot of time trying to learn as much as I could about them.

Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:15 pm

From http://www.bestrestproducts.com/c-100-dyna-beads.aspx

Quote: Thinking in linear terms, Dyna Beads act as harmonic mass dampers. (Wikipedia) As the axle goes up, the beads at the bottom of the tire resist the upward movement (Physics 101 - a body at rest remains at rest until acted upon by some other force). As the axle goes down, the beads at the top of the tire resist the downward movement. Now put that into rotational terms, inside a spinning wheel. Each up/down movement of the tire is met with a small amount of nulling mass, and each rotation distributes the beads, increasing the amount of nulling mass at the point opposite the "heavy point of the tire", until a state of equilibrium is reached. The tire comes into balance and the oscillation of the axle is eliminated.

They've got some good pictures too

Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:29 pm

Yeah, I saw their diagram on "how it works" which seems to address an object at rest, and then end result once in motion. It's the varying speeds in between when the product is at its optimum performance. I just figure at a lower speed, the beads won't have enough centrifugal force to balance out the weight of the tire.

Then again, the traditional lead weight should have a similar optimal state under centrifugal as the beads do. Pretty sure I jsut went crosseyed.

Again, I'm not trying to poke holes in anyones argument. Just trying to wrap my mind around this.

Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:48 pm

Instead of spending $50 on these beads ($10 per tire) can't I just load 3oz of Daisy BBs into each of my tires? What's the difference? I thought there was thread about that awhile back...

Thanks!

Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:51 pm

Found it!

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=497508&highlight=dyna+beads

Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:56 pm

I ran airsoft beebee's in my bus tires and it was PHENOMINAL!!! i'd highly recommend it. do a search on some offroad forums (outside the samba) you'll find the weight for each tire per tire size etc. it's great...also, this has been discussed in the split bus forum here

Wed Mar 14, 2012 1:00 pm

I first encountered this type of tire/wheel balancing when building off road trucks back in the mid 90s.
Due to the huge tires (35 inch - 44 inch) and the fact that beating them on rocks and such all day usually caused lead weights to fall off a balancing ring was developed.
It was a hollow tube with steel ball bearings inside that would get sandwiched between the wheel and drum and "automatically" balance your tire by redistributing the weights to the "lighter" part of the tire/rim. No need to ever rebalance your tires again and no way to loose the weights!

Best thing for VW owners, you can use a stock VW trim ring with no weight getting in the way!

Wed Mar 14, 2012 2:39 pm

Well I'm sold. Any potential drawbacks?

I know using fix-a-flat is a no no because it will cause the beads to bunch up and not move freely, but I don't use it anyway...

Thoughts?

Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:24 pm

DHMaher wrote: Instead of spending $50 on these beads ($10 per tire) can't I just load 3oz of Daisy BBs into each of my tires? What's the difference? I thought there was thread about that awhile back...

Thanks!

The thing with the Dyna Beads is they are SMALL. Just over 1mm in diameter. They can easily be fed through the valve stem if you take out the valve core. And they can be used inside your inner tubes if you are running tubes.

Since they are ceramic, they roll extreamly easily. We caution folks who are playing with them for the first time that they are like fleas. If they get away from you, they bounce and roll away quickly!

And since they are extreamely smooth, they won't clump or wear away the insides of the tire or sand blast the inside of the wheel.

Regular BB's are too big to go through the valve stem. And because they are larger diameter, they may not be able to disperse their weight into needed areas of the wheel as much as the smaller Dyna Beads can.

I'm not sure what size the airsoft BB's are, but I don't think they can go through the valve stem either. I was actually looking on the net for the airsoft charts on how much to use when I found the Dyna Beads.

Getting our gravity cars ready, we played with these a lot while the cars were up on the table. Once in the tire, you can hear them roll around when the wheel is spun slowly. But as you increase the speed, you hear them get quiet. Then they stay in suspension until the wheel almost comes to a complete stop.

It doesn't take much to get them into suspension. We were just spinning the wheels up by hand.

This is with a 6 and 8 inch diameter wheel. So I would imagine that it takes a little more wheel speed to get a 15 inch wheel to put the beads into suspension simply because they need more centrificul force to get them there in a larger diameter tire.

They have been using these in big truck tires for a long time.

Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:37 pm

drscope, Interesting post, so can you tell me how many of these things would you need for a standard VW wheel, or is this a trial/error method until the wheel is finally balanced?
Was also wondering?? I have a road race-track/ street car and on one of the wheels/tire I use on the street develops a harmonic imbalance at a certain rpm and even with my Sun or my $10,000 dollar Hunter balancer plus using my tire truer to shave the tire I can't get it out. Do you have any experience with this type of situation?? Would the beads be fast enough to shift in and out with the harmonic's?

D.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:19 am

i put my airsoft bb's in before setting the bead.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:01 am

JC Whitney used to sell a version of the ring that fits between the drum and wheel. It contained plain old sand. It was sold right next to the Stilco TP paper oil filters.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:09 am

Helfen wrote: drscope, Interesting post, so can you tell me how many of these things would you need for a standard VW wheel, or is this a trial/error method until the wheel is finally balanced?
Was also wondering?? I have a road race-track/ street car and on one of the wheels/tire I use on the street develops a harmonic imbalance at a certain rpm and even with my Sun or my $10,000 dollar Hunter balancer plus using my tire truer to shave the tire I can't get it out. Do you have any experience with this type of situation?? Would the beads be fast enough to shift in and out with the harmonic's?

D.

On a stock size VW tire I put 3 oz in.

These things do react quickly, so if anything work to take out that imbalance, this probably would. On the manufacturers web site, they don't recommend using them in low profile or in road race conditions. However, the more I dig, the more I'm finding people who use them in these situations and are happy with them.

I'm guessing they are just trying to cover their butt in the event someone does not have good results with them.

We have an E-Production VW Golf that we are running DOT tires on in place of slicks. (Toyo Proxies, or the Hoosier DOT road race tire) I'm not sure right now when my driver will be running his next event, but we are installing them in those tires.

It may be a while - he has some pretty big life issues he is dealing with, so unless someone else steps up to drive the car it may sit for most of this season. But I'm interested to see how they work in that situation.

I was talking to a friend that runs an IT Golf and he sheepishly told me they have been secretly running them in his car for the last 3 years.

So I know folks are using them in situations that the manufacturer doesn't recommend and they are having good results.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:38 am

Thanks for your reply, I will give it a shot.

D.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:43 am

Great topic

Beads have been used in the trucking industry for many years.

They do provide a consistantly varying balance.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:48 am

I may have to give this a go, when I get my white wall radials... I like everything about this concept.

I'm a ways away from rolling any where yet though. Since I finsihed my wheels (blasted, primed & painted) I have been stressing about the day I take them in and the tire shop scratches the hell out of them with those lead weights.

Now, if I could figure out a way to get the tires on the rims without the shops mounting machine scratching the paint... :?