Micro Sprint Birdcage Bearing Assembly
Sometimes I like to do things a little bit different than what other people do. For example, I run different bearings on my car than what most run. The bearings I run are Proglides, which is a newer type of technology that the company uses to make bearings roll with less friction than standard bearings. They have developed a coating that is applied to the bearing, which creates an awesome friction fighting power. The coating doubles the life of the bearings and allows you to use a lighter oil because of the coating. Another pro about these bearings is that after a couple of weeks running them, they break in and roll better than they did when new. Crazy right?
You may think, “Why do I need better bearings?" Or "Wow is that going to make me faster?”. Well, the answer is simple: you want your car to move with the least amount of force there is possible. With that being said, that means the motor will use less horsepower to move the car, allowing you to be faster. Think of it like you trying to pull a wagon with some good size rocks in it. That wagon is going to take some force for you to move it. Now, let’s say you remove those rocks and replace it with some cotton balls. That wagon is going to make it a lot easier to pull. Since you are able to use less force to move the wagon, you are able to use that energy somewhere else to make it go faster.
Speedway Motors doesn't sell these bearings already in birdcages straight from the shelf. So, this is where I am going to show you how to install your own bearings inside of birdcages. You could buy these Micro Sprint Birdcages without Bearings, then you just simply insert the new bearings, but you don’t have to. You can simply press out your old bearings from your existing birdcages. It is not difficult to insert new bearings in your birdcages, and is more simple than you think.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Place birdcages inside the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
- Pull them out and immediately drop your bearings inside the birdcages. They will fall right in, just make sure the bearing is squared up before you drop it in. The last thing you want to happen is for your bearing to be crooked inside the birdcage.
- Let the bearing and birdcage cool.
- Once they are cool, make sure they are in there nice and tight by pulling on them.
- Lastly, place your snap ring into place.
In the pictures below, you can see the birdcage without the bearing is going to be how you are going to get it from the shelf. The second picture is what it is going to look like once you have freshly installed the new bearing into the birdcage.
Something like this is one of those small things that will make a huge difference over the course of time. It is also important to make sure you service your bearings frequently, maybe every four races that you run on them. You could probably go longer on them before you service them, but I like to play on the safe side of things when it comes to bearings. The last thing you would want to happen is to have a bearing fail on you during a race due to poor maintenance.
