| Basics of Mini 4WD | ||||
| Part of the chassis | ||||
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| Basics of Grade-up Parts | ||||
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| Intermediate and expert customizations | ||||
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| Race categories | ||||
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The wheels (Japanese: ホイール, Hoīru) and the tires (Japanese: タイヤ, Taiya) are part of the Mini 4WD car's components.
How the wheels and tires works[]
In Mini 4WD car racing, each Mini 4WD car has 4 wheels and 4 tires and they were connected to each ends of the drive shafts. The main purpose of the wheels is to transmits force from the car's drivetrain, and the tires' purpose is to provide better traction between the wheels and the road surfaces.
There are performance differences on the wheel size; Large diameter wheels has better top speed, but has weaker acceleration and is less stable on cornering. Small diameter wheels has better acceleration and is more stable on cornering, but has less top speed than the large diameter wheels. These weaknesses can be compensated through the combinations of motors, gear ratios, wheels and roller setups. (For example, a car with large diameter wheels should be equipped with high gear ratio and torque-focused motor to improves its acceleration, and the more stable roller setup and one-way wheels to improves its stability on cornering.)
The shapes, track length and materials of tires can also affects on how the car performs. Tires with flat surface have more grips, but has more speed losses on cornering. Tires with arched or angled surface has less grips, but has less speed losses on cornering. Shorter track has faster cornering speed, but is less stable, while wider track has better stability, but has slower cornering speed. The hard-compound tires has less grips which is ideal for fast cornering, while soft-compound tires has more grips which is ideal for more acceleration.
Customizations[]
As most default Mini 4WD wheels are made of the softer polypropylene plastic, their outer rims might get bended in heavy impacts, thus causes the car to 'shaken' and increases the risk of being course out. This problem is more apparent with the wheels with less spokes, as they has weaker rigidity than the ones with more spokes. The solution to this is use the wheels that are made in stronger materials, such as glassfiber-mixed nylon, carbon-mixed polyamide nylon and aluminum.
Prior to the existence of the low-profile tires in 2002, the default tires (Specifically, the large diameter Avante-type slick tires and the small diametere high-profile tires) were known to causes rebounds on landing due to their high-profile shapes. The solutions to this is to either swaps it with the low-rebound sponge tires or pneumatic tires, or sanding the tires to thinning them. The thinner the tire profile is, the less the car will rebounds at the expense of sending the landing shocks to the Mini 4WD car itself.
Some racers are also employs the twin-color tire setup, in which a tire was cut in half and sanded to the different low-profile shapes. Usually, the inner part of the twin-color tires are thicker than the outer part. This way, a Mini 4WD car will have less speed loss on cornering.
Maintenance[]
It is recommended that a racer should regularly check their Mini 4WD cars' wheels to see if they are in good condition. The deformed and/or loosen wheels may have to be replaced, as they will negatively affects the car's performances and, as stated above, will increases the risk of being course out.
Over time, the surface of the tires will collects dusts from the circuit's surface and have them sticks to the surfaces. This will decreases the overall grip of the tires if left unchecked and as such, racer should regularly cleans up the tire surfaces to prevent it.
In race regulations[]
In current Mini 4WD race regulations, the wheels and tires of a Mini 4WD car must be within the measurements of 22 mm to 35 mm in diameter and 8 mm to 26 mm wide.
It should be note that while tire sanding is allowed, racers shouldn't place any thing (like paint, oil and sticker) onto the tire surfaces.