Chip

Read a while ago that there wee benefits to be had in using nitrogen to inflate your tyres. I know some racing teams use it as it doesnt expand when heated like air so therefore maintains a more constant tyre pressure which I would imagine would give a better tyre life. I only ask as I keep a bottle of nitro on my van for works use. Just thought it would save me a trip down the local garage.

Chip.

Jonto

Nitrogen is a stable gas and i couldn't forsee any problem. But i will go a step further and suggest you use helium !

Katana

Screw Helium, too expensive. By the power of electrolysis, you can make hydrogen which is much much lighter than helium. Zepellin recomends it.

Molbyman

iTrader: (2)

Common air is about 80% nitrogen....don't bother !

lanky

I heard somewhere that luxury car manufacturers fill their tyres with argon when they leave the factory, as it gives a 'better' ride. Don't know the science behind it though.

johnfelstead

spot on steve!!!!!

Avi

Learn something new every day

RT

You probably can't use Helium as the molecules are very small. This should lead to increased leak rate.

Sound theory?

Mcbrun555

Jesus!!

How fast do you drive????!!

To get the full benifits of it you would have to put some serious heat in your tyres!!!

mcbrun555

Chip

Of course atmospheric pressure must always be taken into account when putting air/nitrogen in your tyres as this will invariably change throughout the day.

Andy.F

Oooh Another gauge for the cockpit

TaviaRS

I've been running nitrogen in mine for the last 7 months. Marvelous, the tyre pressures are much more stable, even with varying ambient temps, going reasonably briskly round track etc. I posted on here about it about 3-4 months ago and was in essence called a fool for having it done. Oh well....

ad

RT you are right. I used to work for a company that processed and sold gaseous and liquified Helium and we discovered that supposedly high tech manifolds comprising of seamless teflon tube wrapped in multi-layers of stainless steel (much like race brake hoses) were porous to Helium which lead to contamination of the contents of cyliders by gas exchange. The manifolds were replaced with low tech soldered copper jobbies which didn't leak and were probably a hundreth of the cost. I reckon a tyre and its bead and its valve is probably less air-tight than a braided hose although I suppose the effect of Helium would be to effectively reduce unsprung weight and improve handling for a couple of hours before the tyres go flat (make sure its a short journey then).

Steve Breen

The reason "air" is not used by race teams is that "air" contains not only the normal gas constituants of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide etc, but it also contains water vapour.

Depending upon the humidity when the tires are pumped up in the pits they will give totally different results as Johnny Racecar Driver gets them upto temperature on track. The water vapour present makes predicting the pressure at the working temperature very difficult.

Use nitrogen (the cheapest inert gas to buy as it tends to be a by product from the chemical idustry) and the calculations of pressure and temperatures become a lot simpler and more normal to Boyles Universal Gas Law.

Steve

[Edited by Steve Breen - 6/11/2002 11:45:20 PM]