Formula V. thoughts? comments? exp?
 

Pegasus - (HAO) Formula V Traction Treatment

thinking of trying this stuff on my climbing shoes...

I've used it with some success on heat-cycled tires. Not sure what it would do for climbing shoes -- I suspect the compound is different, and the shoe soles don't wear out by heat cycling.

Yeah, it's got to be something very similar to tire rubber for it to work.

My experience with it is that it doesn't work miracles. I have friends who have used it for years to extend the life of their race tires. Some would apply a light coat and bag their tires between monthly events, others would just do that over the winter as more of a restorative for tires that weren't dead yet, but wouldn't be used for a few months. What *I* did was pick up a set of used race tires that were almost full-tread, but about 5 years old... applied FV twice a day for a couple weeks hoping that it would revive them. In short, it didn't. I'd have been better off on last year's all-season tires.

So, yeah, it does what it's supposed to do within reason, but it won't bring back completely hard dead rubber.

thanks for the insight guys

Anyone know if this is sold locally anywhere?

Scott

I have used Formula V several times over the years on Hoosier 35 and 25 compound tires.

Follow the instructions in the application of the liquid. It is important to keep applying until the surface of the tread stays wet 30 minutes after the prior application.

Then the most important part of the process is to do a good heat cycle on the tire.

I have found that if the tire temps are not brought up to at least 180 degrees the tire will have no improvement in traction, in fact it will have a greasy feeling on the track. This is not mentioned on the bottle. So treating a set of tires and running them on a 40 second autocross will do nothing to help.

Last July I treated a set of 4 year old Hoosiers, after I reached the recommended saturation point, I used heat lamps to heat the tread up to 170 degrees (having a car with no fenders helps a lot there) I did observe a 7 point drop in durometer readings after this treatment at a tire temp of 90 degrees.

Very true -- the stuff really needs to soak into the tire.

Could be true for race slicks, but I've treated several sets of DOT R-compounds for autocross use and gotten several more useful events (figure around 25 runs) from them. It's not as good as a new set of tires, of course, but a useful way to stretch a set for test-and-tunes, to finish out some non-critical end-of-season events, or to "warm up" into a new season.

Did you have to mail order the product or do you know of a shop that sells it in this area. I have a couple tires I'd like to try it on.

Scott

I don't know of any place locally. Racer Parts Wholesale and Pegasus Racing have it. I'll be Summit Racing carries it as well.

Scott

I can let you use some of my Formula V, but I am not sure when I will get back to another event. At this moment I do not plan to go to the state champ event.

I got my stuff mail order many years ago. By the way, it has a very strong peppermint odor.

Maybe one of the track side vendors has it in stock.

Dave