Tracker Stim question...Duros?

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Martin Drayton
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Tracker Stim question...Duros?

Post by Martin Drayton » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:32 am

Hi there, I recently re-discovered the joys of Stims and have a yellow and a green. Does anyone know the relative hardnesses of the above? Or the blues?

Thanks,

Guest

Post by Guest » Sun Aug 21, 2005 5:16 am

Buddy Carr explained it to me years ago. Somewhere along the lines in the early 90s (he thinks) a pour was made of greens that turned out to be "soft", so a solid 45% of the green stims out there are soft, some softer than the yellows. Also somewhere in the early 90s Tracker poured purple stimulators that are the same as the blue ones (hard) if anything they are more dead.

Larry Balma told me also that the original formula for the blue conicals and stimulator bushings is long gone. The chemicals used and such are no longer available thus the newer Tracker bushings never got anywhere close to the 80s ones.

So it depends. Stims were supposed to be as follows;

yellow - soft (75-80a'ish)*
green - medium (75-85a'ish)*
blue (or purple) - hard (90a+)*

*It's been years since I thought about all of this but if you do a search on ncdsa for stimulators and look for posts by me "ur13" from around 2002 you'll find exact duros for the good pour yellow, good pur greens, messed up pour greens and blues.

Martin, you know I used to be the biggest Tracker nerd ever when I was on Turner. Stims and the blue conicals are fine fine bushings...however the newest Khiro bushings, the Whites and blue are VERY good. I actually prefer them to the old Tracker ones. Look into those if you want a good "new" bushing.

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Post by Chris Peddecord » Sun Aug 21, 2005 5:26 am

Chris, I have you ever been on Radikal bushings? How do they compare to Khiros?

Guest

Post by Guest » Sun Aug 21, 2005 6:44 pm

I've not spent much time on Radikal bushings. The times I have have been on a friends board(s) setup way different than anything I would ever ride.

Sorry.

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STIM BITS

Post by Steve Collins » Sun Aug 21, 2005 9:29 pm

I've got some yellow stims that are as hard as the blues. I also have some of the soft greens.

My take is that the soft-yellows are the softest, followed by the soft-greens, then the medium-greens, then the hard-blues, with the hard-yellows being the hardest. I should add that my experience with stims is that even the hardest ones have a lot of rebound and are unsuitable for applications requiring truly hard bushings, like downhill.

Radikal bushings are very nice but just do not have the rebound of Stims (IMHO). The clear is lightly softer than a yellow Stim and the red is slightly harder. I haven't used any other colors of Radikals.

Khiro bushings are also nice, but there seems to be a huge gap between the super-soft-whites and the soft blues. Also, the whites are too soft for a strong rebound and the blues are too hard for a very turny truck (again, IMHO).

As far as I'm concerned, Stims are still "it". I have not yet tried making bushings from Abec11 wheels but it looks very promising.

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STIMulating discussion...

Post by Martin Drayton » Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:23 am

Thanks for the info boys! Actually Chris S. I have been using Khiros since they came out and love the Whites, but have to agree with Steve that there is a big gap between the Whites and the Blues (for me).
I put a green (soft) Stim in my Splitfire rear the other night and the set-up moved up a gear!

ps.Just had a mega clearout...What did I find? A little stock of Tracker TK-051's, tops and bottoms AND blue conicals and barrels mostly unused! Can't wait to try them all!

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Post by Wesley Tucker » Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:19 am

OK,

Zack has Stims for sale this week.

I got some Stims. Bought some back in '02 from Longboardskate.com. I needed bushings and everyone was raving about these things. I got some green and yellows. Still have them. I showed them to Geezer and some other guys at the '05 Dixie Cup and they went gaga over them.

What's the big deal? I put them on Trackers, Indys and later on my Chindys. They worked, but they're a bushing. I was not overwhelmed by them.

In a world with Khiros and Radikal bushings, why are these things still considered some kind of magic? Is it just nostalgia? I can't see where the response or rebound is anywhere near as performance oriented as the new stuff available.

By the way, just for the record, I always thought the very best bushing I ever rode were Tracker GRAYS. They came stock on the later versions of Haf, Mid and Fulltracks. I think by the time I bought some of the plastic baseplate Trackers in the early '80s, they had switched to the black bushings.
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Post by Karl Floitgraf » Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:02 am

Stims kick ass because the rebound back to center really well. When I ride khiros I feel like I have to pump twice as hard, once to turn the board and then to bring it back to center. Whereas on a Stim, you can push it hard because it comes back to center. You don't have to wait to start to go the other way. Perfect for the back truck and a TS bushing in the front.

For those looking for a super responsive soft front bushing, try to snag yourself a couple blue barrel G*Truck bushings. Just slightly harder than White khiros but they come back to center just as fast as stims. They are a product of germany, Heiko sells them at his shop and online at Concretewave.de .

I think Richy Carasco used to ride G*truck bushings and got a couple podiums on them.
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Post by Ron Barbagallo » Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:58 pm

I like a green Stim on the bottom and a white Khiro on top - you get the "bounce" from the Stim and some nice "damping" from the Khiro.


I have some orange Khiros coming, interested to see how they compre
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