I agree with Mike. I have my Toyo RRs mounted at Walmart for $5 a wheel with no tax. Can you honestly tell me that the cost of a mounting machine and the amount you value your free time is worth the hastle of doing it yourself? I personally don't balance my tires as even the puny 205/50/15 RRs move on my Kosei K1 15x7 wheels during a race, but balancing is where the money is normally spent as that can be anywhere from $10 to $20 a wheel. Perhaps just purchasing a nice balancer that you keep properly calibrated would be a better investment. I always worry about how accurate a tire shop's balancer really is.

Not to mention the operator.

I use a race shop for this stuff. No issues, ever, and for the low, low price of $90. ;-) Done.

Most machines can do thick sidewall tires w/ little stretching. However, the better machines will be a necessity if you're looking at trying to stretch or mount stiff sidewall 35 profile tires. Using a LOT of lube both on the inside and outside of the tire, as well as barrel of the wheel, will help tremendously.

You should be able to get a good machine for rather cheap if you buy used, you just need to hook it up to a large compressor.

Then there's balancing... which is the more expensive of the two if you actually want a good balance. I wouldn't use anything other than a Hunter Roadforce or equivalent machine, but that's up to you. might not be as important for dedicated track rubber.

LOL most of the guys I know who have them keep them in their spare bedrooms or basements.

CSG rotates between 5 sets of wheels for the BRZ, and yet, somehow we seem to constantly be mounting and dismounting tires for testing... :mad0259:

Going OT...

Been there and done that with 7 sets. Still doing it, in fact, but with only one (upcoming) event this year instead of the normal 15-20, I'm down to two fresh sets of drys and one fresh set of wets. It's like a vacation! :D

With the race car for sale, I'm not going to miss staying on top of that scene at all. I will say this: I learned a lot about race tires, what works and doesn't work on my particular car, and why. It's given me a better appreciation for why a pro team has a tire guy, as well as some idea of what he's doing besides mounting and balancing tires, which isn't much of the job at all.

I had a friend years ago that managed a Firestone shop. At the time I had a BMW that was very picky about properly balanced tires. He had what seemed like a very basic machine at his shop, definitely not a RoadForce unit. I think the more expensive balancers try to compensate for lack of user skill, and try to get everything done with reasonable error in the shortest amount of time.

My friend would mount the tire, then find the heavy part of the tire and light part of the wheel using the balancer, marking each (no I don't know the brand of balancer he used). Next, he would remount the tire to match up these spots before doing a final balance. Also, he would use both inner and outer weights and line them up precisely in the center of the region indicated by the balancer. VERY few tire shops (like none I have ever heard of) will actually take the time to do this, but you could with your own equipment. A skilled technician that cares and takes his time can make all the difference in balancing a tire on a wheel.

Not necessarily the advice I was looking for but nonetheless I appreciate the feed back. I think I've figured out what direction I'm going in.

Ultimately it boils down to luxury. It's something I want, It's something I've done myself and it's not rocket science. I can accurately balance a wheel with a bubble balancer but just because I can doesn't mean I want to. Even if I could get it done for $20/set somewhere it still means I have to go somewhere, wait, deal with people.

I was just seeing if buying used equipment of a higher caliber is on-par with new equipment in a more affordable range and my research has lead to the answer that yes, for everything I want to do the affordable equipment from Atlas will help me happily change and balance 1000's of tires for years to come.

Frankly, I'm pretty pumped about this. :D

I will be getting new tires for the FRS, the tow rig and another set for the race car over the winter and I'm looking forward to a little DIY!


edit: I like the hands free tool for machines without the helper arm:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQidvHqcpc"]Atlas Tire Changer Hands Free Clamp - YouTube[/ame]

You should factor in the cost of machine reliability and cost to repair. So compressor, mounting machine, and balancer. Balancer needs to be calibrated every so often, no-mar parts on the mounter are consumables, helper arm is required for stiffer sidewall tires, no such thing as a hands free machine (the more complicated, the more stuff to break)

As far as balancing, the complicated and most sophisticated way is to figure out the high and low points on the wheel itself, then match that to the tire depending on the tire's heavy side, then use inner/outer weights and roadforce it to make sure everything's in check when force is applied. This required measure bare wheel, mounting tire and inflating fully, balancing, deflating/breaking bead to rotate tire, reinflating tire, balancing again, then road force.

Most high performance shops will mount/balance in the manner @Black_Tire said above. Only budget econo-tire places will not. It's really a pain to do yourself, and for the cost of good machines, not worth it to own your own since you're looking at a couple grand if not 5-digits for the entire setup.

So what exactly did you buy from Atlas? I will look forward to hearing about how you like it and your DIY.

No need for roadforce balancing in anything I do, but thanks though.

Also I've mounted and balanced tires myself on similar machines so this isn't my first rodeo, which is part of the reason I hate going elsewhere while I watch an idiot fumble around while I wait longer than I should and have to spend money.

I was just looking for feedback from people who have bought/used/operated these machines before. After taking this subject to folks who do a lot of racing they've provided excellent feedback on Atlas in which they've mounted/balanced 1000's of tires without any failure or maintenance costs and the consensus is that most folks love having their own setup and the ones that don't wish they did. Also the WB11 (like most balancers) can self calibrate and calibration is easy to check.

Compressor: check
Weights, lube, accessories: check
Local distributor in Oregon (no sales tax): check
Previous experience mounting/balancing: check
Actually purchasing new equipment myself: Final step

Several other racers that do everything from 15x7's to 19" wheels and even SUV tires have pointed me to the 229 and WB11.
http://www.gregsmithequipment.com/COMBO-TC229-WB11

I will also add the "manual" helper arm to save money at first and if I feel I need the more expensive LH Arm for $700 I can add that later.
http://www.gregsmithequipment.com/At...ead-Roller-Arm
And this:
http://www.gregsmithequipment.com/At...-Tire-Changers

Manual bead roller (ft. hands free clamp)
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u1GtN_nqBU"]Atlas Manual Bead Roller Arm (MBR) - YouTube[/ame]



I will probably pick it all up when I'm down in Portland in the middle of October if my 'partner in crime' wants to pursue this path as well. It looks like we can be fully setup for ~$2600

It would be interesting to AB your balancing with a roadforce balancer, Can you tell the difference at 110? Then it would be interesting to take a tire you balanced and see how it fares on a roadforce balancer.

RFB doesn't balance any differently than a normal dynamic digital balancer. But what it does do differently is check for out-of-round or "uniformity" of the tire/wheel. The machine can match the high and low points of the tire and wheel to reduce the "out-of-roundess" (or variations in uniformity) but after that it then balances the wheel/tire assembly the same way as other machines.

Also, if you buy quality wheels to begin with that have little to no run-out (most modern OEMs) then there won't be a low-point on the wheel to match the high-point on the tire so there's a chance your defective tire can't be artificially remedied with an RFB anyway.

Finally, on a race car, 20 minutes into the session you're going to fill the inside of the wheel with other-people's-rubber anyway which affects the balance of the wheel so there's that. Many racers don't actually balance their tires, they just mount and race. Blows my mind.

Lol my first thought was "how did I get to rrax...." ;)