bearing quality question

[nitrothugg]

can someone give me the order of quality between bearings:

rubber sealed
ceramic
teflon
metals

[racer234]

I'll try to someup what I've learned about them:

metal shielded- the worst of the three common types of shielding, but decent resistance
rubber shielding- excellent protection of the bearing, but high resistance in the bearing
teflon shielding- the best of both worlds, good protection with low resistance
ceramic- this refers the the balls in the bearing itself. They are either ceramic coated, or are entirely ceramic, this provides for exceptionally low resistance. I've seen too many people have bad luck with them though, they seem to be hit or miss.

Overall, I feel that teflon shielded bearings are the best.

Oh and if I'm wrong about any of this stuff PLEASE correct me.

[-=ADA$=-]

the best of both worlds i would say should be polymere shielded by acer, theyr said to almost eliminate drag due to shielding. And ceramic i think have titanium nitride balls. but i might be wrong

[Grizzbob]

That's all pretty close, though keep in mind that for racing you can do a few things to even some cheaper bearings that will allow them to run well in a car(though for how long is another matter). For example, my TC4 came with rubber sealed bearings(which was a wee bit of a disappointment since my TC3 from 5 years ago came with teflon sealed ones), so I decided to go ahead & try a little trick with 'em, by removing all of the inner seals from them(& by that I mean the seal that faces inward, the ones that face out I left alone), sprayed out all of the grease from them, & then put a drop of light bearing oil in them before installing them in the car. And doing so freed up my car IMMENSELY, little darlin' can spin REAL nice(& my friends can DEFINITELY see the diffeence on track, as I also tend to have pretty strong motors & batteries). While I've been pretty quick before, now I'm outdragging people with the same equipment I was running even with 'em before. However, I do have to keep a close eye on those bearings & make sure they stay clean & lubed, since they basically aren't sealed at all anymore..... :cool:

[-=ADA$=-]

i do same thing, run couple of tanks maybe a little more, on stock bearings, than clean them, and use some sort of light oil