Do you balance the wheels/tires on your lemon? (Page 1 of 2)

I have "bubble balanced" about 10 Dunlop Direzzas, and NONE needed balance weights.  These were on stock Vdub aluminum wheels, two with a few "minor" rash marks due to contact.  It was free since I had a bucket of weights, and a balance in the shop already.

   Same wheels, next race:  Could not get Dunlops, so got the new Falken 615K.  Only one did NOT need weights, the others usually needed 1-1.75 ounces.   Turning on the rim did not resolve the imbalance.

This is Lemons.  If you balance them perfectly, 8.7 seconds into the first stint some hooner will grenade in front of you and you will flat spot all 4 trying to dodge the carnage.  As long as the car doesn't rattle your teeth loose, you are good.

Yes.  As our tires last 2-3 races including practice sessions, we are on them for a while, and having a set of unbalanced tires adds even more fatigue for the drivers.  It is cheap, too.

At least 2 or 3 of my 8 wheels are slightly bent, so.... they got balanced.

Never balanced any of the 40 plus falken azenis  for the factor if you balance it ,as the tire wears out then that weight will make out of balance .
Plus balancing vibration are usually from staying at a certain speed for a while.
Most vibrations are 35 65 85 mph but when racing your accelerating thru those speeds .

Save the $7-10 a tire for balancing.

Go have your coffee.

Balanced with tape weights, cover them with AL tape to keep them on.

If I had to pay for it, I wouldn't balance them.

I like having them balanced for track use where we may see 100+mph.

For autocross, I don't balance.  less unsprung weight

That really only works if the wheel is spinning at a constant speed like going down the hwy.  It would cause more unbalance in a Lemons car with the constant accel and decel we go through.

Agreed, I think the airsoft pellets is an urban myth.  An unbalanced tire tends to sling the heaviest part of the tire farther from the center of the axle.  The pellets would go to the farthest point from the center, which would also be the heavy spot, so they should actually exacerbate an imbalance.

Many people have drinked the blue koolaid, but that doesn't mean it's really koolaid.

The dynamic balance with airsoft bb's works.  But really only on large tires with big sidewalls.  The 31's on my Jeep are balance that way and it works really good.  Tractor trailers have been doing it for decades. 
You have to use alot of them, I have 8-10oz in my little 31's.  Search offroad/rock crawling forums and you'll find lots of people do it with great results.

Must just be me.  I've seen no improvement in higway manners w/ bias and radial swampers stuffed w/ beanbags, airsof, BB's, proper clip on weights...  Big tires w/ real tread are wobbly IME.
OTOH, our race tires have never needed more than an ounce to balance, so I just don't put the weight on, since it wil be imbalanced after 24hrs, or get knocked off during an agricultural excursion.

Heavy trucks (as in semi fleets) do this all the time. It really works. As long as tire RPM is above the point where centripetal force sticks the beads to the tire, it's good. This means that the smaller and lighter the bead, the closer to 0mph it'll work.

Speed changes don't make an appreciable difference. There's some internal shifting, but it balances back out continuously with a small lag - the general effect being that you're never actually in perfect balance - but you're chasing it closely).

Drawbacks:
- It doesn't do a damned thing for lateral imblances - only radial. This means that a lot of wheels (especially ones with higher offsets) with low-profile tires will need additional weight (the extra mass of high-profile tires diminishes the significance of lateral wheel balance).

Most manufacturers of dedicated products for these things say not to bother with aspects lower than 60, which excludes almost everybody's race tires.

- It's a goddamned asshole to install the first time (They will end up in the bead until you work out a technique that works for you to prevent it)

I've got two of the tires on my truck balanced this way because Walmart can't crimp wheel weights to save their lives. If anything, they're smoother than the others.