Injora 114 Rock Crawler Tire
Element Gatekeeper clawing its way up the rock.
Scrolling through eBay searching for a few different budget-oriented rock crawler tires for the next round of testing, one of the 1.9” tires which caught my eye were the Injora 114mm Rock Crawler Tires.
The tread pattern looked promising, maybe just a bit on the tight side, but as a whole they seemed good enough to test. The $30.00 price for all four tires is a little less than half of what premium tires currently cost, undoubtedly making it an affordable tire for many RC crawlers.
This same tire appears on eBay under a few different names, but from what I can tell Injora is the manufacturer or at least the main distributor.
For the purposes of this review I will be referring to this tire as the “114 RCT” because there seems to be no standard naming convention for tires from this company.
Injora does offer a smaller size of this tire and it shares a near identical description, but that particular tire has a different outside diameter as well as a slightly different tread pattern. Using the outside diameter as part of the naming convention will help keep things clear as to which tire I’m referring to during this review.
I felt it important to include a range of tires in the testing, and not just focusing on the premium crawler tires from companies like JConcepts and Proline Racing, so here goes our first look at a “budget tire.”
The tread pattern looked promising, maybe just a bit on the tight side, but as a whole they seemed good enough to test. The $30.00 price for all four tires is a little less than half of what premium tires currently cost, undoubtedly making it an affordable tire for many RC crawlers.
This same tire appears on eBay under a few different names, but from what I can tell Injora is the manufacturer or at least the main distributor.
For the purposes of this review I will be referring to this tire as the “114 RCT” because there seems to be no standard naming convention for tires from this company.
Injora does offer a smaller size of this tire and it shares a near identical description, but that particular tire has a different outside diameter as well as a slightly different tread pattern. Using the outside diameter as part of the naming convention will help keep things clear as to which tire I’m referring to during this review.
I felt it important to include a range of tires in the testing, and not just focusing on the premium crawler tires from companies like JConcepts and Proline Racing, so here goes our first look at a “budget tire.”
114mm Injora Rock Crawler Tire for the 1.9" wheel.
Details
Inspecting the 114 RCT, I found the layout to be a good scale version of the full-sized off-road truck tire. Some companies have a proprietary or unique tread pattern to set their tires apart, but this 114 RCT follows the more traditional styling commonly found on eBay.
The tread pattern is laid out as a non-directional 50/50 symmetrical styling, in that one half of the tire is a reversed but identical copy of the other. This way mounting direction of the tire does not matter. There is no lettering, numbering, or manufacturer’s logo of any kind on either side of the tire.
The 114 RCT looks a bit like the Duratrax scaler in relation to the tread pattern, but with a much thicker sidewall and tire carcass.
The lower sidewall band is a strange pattern, like a generic tribal tattoo purchased while on vacation in Orlando, or something to that effect. They are virtually non-functional, formed in the direction of tire rotation rather than perpendicular to travel. The lugs are also close together and rather tall, forming a rigid rubber ring around the side of the tire. This stiffens up the tire in an area where you would actually want a bit more flex for the tire to conform to the rock allowing the lugs to spread apart for grip.
Update: A sharp-eyed member from the RC Crawler forum spotted this tire style on a full-sized truck.! Once brought to light, it was quickly pined down as a very close copy of the Pro Comp Xtreme Mud Tire. The side lug pattern is a bit out of scale on the 114 RCT, but for all intents and purposes it's a direct copy. Well done guys!
Here is a link to the 1:1 version: https://www.procompusa.com/products/pro-comp-xtreme-m-t-2-radial-tires/
Inspecting the 114 RCT, I found the layout to be a good scale version of the full-sized off-road truck tire. Some companies have a proprietary or unique tread pattern to set their tires apart, but this 114 RCT follows the more traditional styling commonly found on eBay.
The tread pattern is laid out as a non-directional 50/50 symmetrical styling, in that one half of the tire is a reversed but identical copy of the other. This way mounting direction of the tire does not matter. There is no lettering, numbering, or manufacturer’s logo of any kind on either side of the tire.
The 114 RCT looks a bit like the Duratrax scaler in relation to the tread pattern, but with a much thicker sidewall and tire carcass.
The lower sidewall band is a strange pattern, like a generic tribal tattoo purchased while on vacation in Orlando, or something to that effect. They are virtually non-functional, formed in the direction of tire rotation rather than perpendicular to travel. The lugs are also close together and rather tall, forming a rigid rubber ring around the side of the tire. This stiffens up the tire in an area where you would actually want a bit more flex for the tire to conform to the rock allowing the lugs to spread apart for grip.
Update: A sharp-eyed member from the RC Crawler forum spotted this tire style on a full-sized truck.! Once brought to light, it was quickly pined down as a very close copy of the Pro Comp Xtreme Mud Tire. The side lug pattern is a bit out of scale on the 114 RCT, but for all intents and purposes it's a direct copy. Well done guys!
Here is a link to the 1:1 version: https://www.procompusa.com/products/pro-comp-xtreme-m-t-2-radial-tires/
Foams and Tire Setup
The 114 RCT’s come with open-celled foam tire inserts, but these tire foams leave quite a bit to be desired. I appreciate their effort to include tire foams, but these inserts are actually long strips of foam glued at the ends to form a ring. For a shelf-queen this might work, but for anything else these are just not going to hold up.
The glue forms a hard spot at the joint and the high likelihood that these glue joints will fail makes these foams unreliable. While I was removing the foams from the tires, one of the glue joints failed before I even got it out of the tire; straight into the trash these went.
As with our previous crawler tire tests, I punched three 3mm vent holes in each tire and installed a set of generic open-cell foams. For wheels, I pulled from the rack a trusty set of Vanquish aluminum beadlock wheels and 475 SLW hubs. The front wheels also were outfitted with Vanquish stainless steel 1.9" wheel weights.
The 114 RCT’s come with open-celled foam tire inserts, but these tire foams leave quite a bit to be desired. I appreciate their effort to include tire foams, but these inserts are actually long strips of foam glued at the ends to form a ring. For a shelf-queen this might work, but for anything else these are just not going to hold up.
The glue forms a hard spot at the joint and the high likelihood that these glue joints will fail makes these foams unreliable. While I was removing the foams from the tires, one of the glue joints failed before I even got it out of the tire; straight into the trash these went.
As with our previous crawler tire tests, I punched three 3mm vent holes in each tire and installed a set of generic open-cell foams. For wheels, I pulled from the rack a trusty set of Vanquish aluminum beadlock wheels and 475 SLW hubs. The front wheels also were outfitted with Vanquish stainless steel 1.9" wheel weights.
Vanquish VS 410 Pro on the trail.
First Day Out – Badrock Ridge
I headed to Badrock Ridge with the 114’s mounted on our lovely Vanquish VS 410 Pro. I can’t say enough good things about this crawler, other than it’s hard for me to even look at another 1.9 with any serious interest. While I do have a few other 1.9’s in the collection, the Vanquish is by far my favorite.
As expected, the VS 410 cruised along smoothly on the flat sandstone without issue, up until the point where the trail steepened. Right away the tires began slipping, something which struck me odd for a rather sedate hill and with this crawler.
Running my hand along the rock, I had thought there might have been a fine layer of sand or grit recently blown over the rock making the tires slip, but I found nothing of the sort. The rock was dry and rough, and in near perfect condition for rock crawling.
I took the moment to capture a few photos, crouching low with the camera for a good shot. After snapping these, right away something looked amiss. Under the passenger rear tire I could see light shining up from beneath the tread. Zooming in on the image, I could see that the tire was suspended the air with just the far outside edge contacting the rock. There was virtually no flex or give in the tire, even with the weight of the truck pressing down.
Without any kind of flex in the tire carcass, the lugs would skate along the rock's surface rather than biting into the rock. I tried multiple lines on the trail in hopes something would get the VS 410 moving again, but to no avail. After a few hours I gave up and headed back to the shop.
I headed to Badrock Ridge with the 114’s mounted on our lovely Vanquish VS 410 Pro. I can’t say enough good things about this crawler, other than it’s hard for me to even look at another 1.9 with any serious interest. While I do have a few other 1.9’s in the collection, the Vanquish is by far my favorite.
As expected, the VS 410 cruised along smoothly on the flat sandstone without issue, up until the point where the trail steepened. Right away the tires began slipping, something which struck me odd for a rather sedate hill and with this crawler.
Running my hand along the rock, I had thought there might have been a fine layer of sand or grit recently blown over the rock making the tires slip, but I found nothing of the sort. The rock was dry and rough, and in near perfect condition for rock crawling.
I took the moment to capture a few photos, crouching low with the camera for a good shot. After snapping these, right away something looked amiss. Under the passenger rear tire I could see light shining up from beneath the tread. Zooming in on the image, I could see that the tire was suspended the air with just the far outside edge contacting the rock. There was virtually no flex or give in the tire, even with the weight of the truck pressing down.
Without any kind of flex in the tire carcass, the lugs would skate along the rock's surface rather than biting into the rock. I tried multiple lines on the trail in hopes something would get the VS 410 moving again, but to no avail. After a few hours I gave up and headed back to the shop.
Element's Gatekeeper on the trail.
Swapping to the Gatekeeper
With such a poor performance from the 114 RCTs on the Vanquish VS 410 Pro, I opted to move the wheels and tires over to our Element Gatekeeper to see if a truck change might result in an improvement on the trail. It's not that I necessarily feel the Vanquish is the weak link, but the crawling performance was so bad that I wanted to completely change crawlers just to clear my initial impression of the 114 RCT. I’m not pretending that it never happened, but I wanted to quickly forget it.
I headed back out to the very same area and brough along the Go Pro for some filming. My idea was to shoot a few clips of the Gatekeeper on the trail just so you could see the 114 RCT’s performance for yourself.
For comparison, I brought along an additional set of wheels and tires set up with a basic set of open-cell foams and the same pair of wheel weights. These wheels have a set of JConcepts Landmine tires mounted up which were from a previous project. I consider the Landmines to be a premium tire with excellent all-around performance, and a good way to demonstrate how much tire selection matters on a crawler.
There are a number of ways to start out at Badrock Ridge, and I tend to start at the lower entrance where the red sandstone rock ramp up smoothly from the dirt and gravel around the base. Usually any one of my crawlers easily drives up this entrance ramp and wrap around to the left, heading towards the upper section of the trail.
Watching the Gatekeeper work its way up the rock with the 114 RCTs, I knew right away this was not going to be a good day on the trail. The 114 RCT tires were scratching around on the sandstone, developing virtually no traction for bite. The crawler failed to make any headway on the rock, well before what I consider to even be the first technical feature of the trail. I had not expected that I would be setting up the GoPro within the first three feet of the trail, but there I was pulling out the tripod and setting up for a short video clip.
With the film running, I started up the same line again and encountered the same results. The tire’s cleats slipped and popped, but the crawler was making very little progress. Even with throttle modulation, it took a bit of searching with the steering to find something for the tires to grip and get the Gatekeeper up and over. The rubber compound is hard and the carcass quite thick, resulting in a tire that simply can’t grip the small imperfection in the rock’s surface.
Switching over to the Landmines, everything changed and the Gatekeeper easily walked up this line and into the trail. There is a startling difference between the two tires. One tire makes the Gatekeeper look like a solid rock crawler while the other tire gives the impression that the truck has mediocre crawling capabilities.
As many of you know, Element RC crawler are highly competent and agile rock crawlers, and these 114's are doing the truck no justice. While proper suspension setup and weight distribution is key to a crawler’s performance, poor tires can considerably diminish any technical improvements.
With such a poor performance from the 114 RCTs on the Vanquish VS 410 Pro, I opted to move the wheels and tires over to our Element Gatekeeper to see if a truck change might result in an improvement on the trail. It's not that I necessarily feel the Vanquish is the weak link, but the crawling performance was so bad that I wanted to completely change crawlers just to clear my initial impression of the 114 RCT. I’m not pretending that it never happened, but I wanted to quickly forget it.
I headed back out to the very same area and brough along the Go Pro for some filming. My idea was to shoot a few clips of the Gatekeeper on the trail just so you could see the 114 RCT’s performance for yourself.
For comparison, I brought along an additional set of wheels and tires set up with a basic set of open-cell foams and the same pair of wheel weights. These wheels have a set of JConcepts Landmine tires mounted up which were from a previous project. I consider the Landmines to be a premium tire with excellent all-around performance, and a good way to demonstrate how much tire selection matters on a crawler.
There are a number of ways to start out at Badrock Ridge, and I tend to start at the lower entrance where the red sandstone rock ramp up smoothly from the dirt and gravel around the base. Usually any one of my crawlers easily drives up this entrance ramp and wrap around to the left, heading towards the upper section of the trail.
Watching the Gatekeeper work its way up the rock with the 114 RCTs, I knew right away this was not going to be a good day on the trail. The 114 RCT tires were scratching around on the sandstone, developing virtually no traction for bite. The crawler failed to make any headway on the rock, well before what I consider to even be the first technical feature of the trail. I had not expected that I would be setting up the GoPro within the first three feet of the trail, but there I was pulling out the tripod and setting up for a short video clip.
With the film running, I started up the same line again and encountered the same results. The tire’s cleats slipped and popped, but the crawler was making very little progress. Even with throttle modulation, it took a bit of searching with the steering to find something for the tires to grip and get the Gatekeeper up and over. The rubber compound is hard and the carcass quite thick, resulting in a tire that simply can’t grip the small imperfection in the rock’s surface.
Switching over to the Landmines, everything changed and the Gatekeeper easily walked up this line and into the trail. There is a startling difference between the two tires. One tire makes the Gatekeeper look like a solid rock crawler while the other tire gives the impression that the truck has mediocre crawling capabilities.
As many of you know, Element RC crawler are highly competent and agile rock crawlers, and these 114's are doing the truck no justice. While proper suspension setup and weight distribution is key to a crawler’s performance, poor tires can considerably diminish any technical improvements.
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In this first video, the Gatekeeper is working on a small sandstone rock which leads the way into Badrock Ridge from the North side.
You can see the Gatekeeper struggle to find any traction from the 114 RCT tires. |
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Switching tires to the JConcepts Landmines, you can see much much better the Gatekeeper performs with this setup.
Keep in mind that we are running the same foams, same wheel weights, and the same aluminum beadlock wheel style. The only difference are the tires. |
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Back with the 114 RCTs, the Gatekeeper struggled with another section of the trail, attempting to scale a rather sedate rock face.
You can clearly hear the tire's lugs popping free on the rock's surface. |
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On this same hill, the JConcepts Landmine tires were able to dig into the tiny imperfections of the rock and help the Gatekeeper to the top.
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Back at the Shop
With the morning resulting being something slightly better than a complete failure, and but not by much, I sat down and ordered a variety of foams and inserts from Crawler Innovations. I had been holding off on ordering foams from CI until their inventory had caught up enough to make one large order, so I figured now was a good time to order a variety of their foams while they had some items in stock. These foams are considered by many to be the best, and they often sell out quickly.
The tires are 114mm ( 4.5” ), but I found them a bit too small inside for the 4.5” CI foams, so I had to try the 4.25 foams. With the 4.25’s CI soft foams installed in the front and mediums in the rear, the sidewalls still felt stiff with minimal flex. Keep in mind that at this point, I’ve spent nearly $60 on foams for a set of tires which cost $30.00. As you can see, this “budge tire” isn’t actually panning out as such.
As a side note, I have no sponsorship or financial relationship with Crawler Innovations, but their foams are exceptionally good and I use them in almost all of my vehicles. The intent here is to show that even with premium, top quality foams, sometimes you still can't get the results you are looking for.
With the morning resulting being something slightly better than a complete failure, and but not by much, I sat down and ordered a variety of foams and inserts from Crawler Innovations. I had been holding off on ordering foams from CI until their inventory had caught up enough to make one large order, so I figured now was a good time to order a variety of their foams while they had some items in stock. These foams are considered by many to be the best, and they often sell out quickly.
The tires are 114mm ( 4.5” ), but I found them a bit too small inside for the 4.5” CI foams, so I had to try the 4.25 foams. With the 4.25’s CI soft foams installed in the front and mediums in the rear, the sidewalls still felt stiff with minimal flex. Keep in mind that at this point, I’ve spent nearly $60 on foams for a set of tires which cost $30.00. As you can see, this “budge tire” isn’t actually panning out as such.
As a side note, I have no sponsorship or financial relationship with Crawler Innovations, but their foams are exceptionally good and I use them in almost all of my vehicles. The intent here is to show that even with premium, top quality foams, sometimes you still can't get the results you are looking for.
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The new CI foams helped some, allowing the Gatekeeper to just have enough grip to make it to the top. Note the minimal tire flex at the rear, even though most of the truck's weight is pressing down on that outside rear tire.
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Badrock Ridge – Round 2 with the Gatekeeper
Back out on the trail, the Gatekeeper was hitting the rocks with only a slight gain in performance with the new foams installed. This minimal level of improvement wasn’t completely unexpected, but somewhat frustrating. The tire’s thick sidewall carcass continued to hinder the tread from conforming to the rock, and while the foams did seem to allow a bit of tire flex at the side wall, it was only slightly at extreme angles. After an hour of crawling, I pulled the plug and headed back to the shop; these tires simply weren’t up to the task of crawling, and I couldn’t see any situation or tuning adjustment where they would improve. |
Not enough flex to grip the rock.
Final Thoughts
I would define this as a “truck tire” and not a “crawler tire,” giving perspective to what this is best suited for. The actual build quality of the tire is better than I had expected and mounting them on the 1.9” beadlock wheels was simple.
For drivers who spend most of their time cruising around on trails or over basic terrain, these should be up to the task.
When it comes to actual rock crawling, I can’t recommend these tires. The traction is poor on hard rock, causing our usually reliable and dialed-in Element Gatekeeper to flounder on even the most basic rocks and technical features.
For our shop, these tires will most likely end up in the bin for either a 1.9” U4 buggy or maybe even try them on the 1/10 Losi Baja Rey.
I would define this as a “truck tire” and not a “crawler tire,” giving perspective to what this is best suited for. The actual build quality of the tire is better than I had expected and mounting them on the 1.9” beadlock wheels was simple.
For drivers who spend most of their time cruising around on trails or over basic terrain, these should be up to the task.
When it comes to actual rock crawling, I can’t recommend these tires. The traction is poor on hard rock, causing our usually reliable and dialed-in Element Gatekeeper to flounder on even the most basic rocks and technical features.
For our shop, these tires will most likely end up in the bin for either a 1.9” U4 buggy or maybe even try them on the 1/10 Losi Baja Rey.
Injora 114 RCT Evaluation Results
Technical Rock: 15/30
Large Slab ( Slick Rock ): 8/20
Tire Construction Quality and Appearance: 12/20
Rubber Compound: 10/20
Tread Life: 5/5
Versatility: 2/5
Total Score: 52/100
Technical Rock: 15/30
- The trucks struggled to handle anything remotely technical on the trail due to the hard, tightly packed lug pattern making it very difficult to hook into any of the rock's features.
Large Slab ( Slick Rock ): 8/20
- Probably their worst area of performance, and primarily due to the hard rubber compound and inflexibility of the tire.
Tire Construction Quality and Appearance: 12/20
- The molded in detail is not too bad, and the beads are well formed. Unfortunately, the carcass is too thick for flexibility, and the lugs are too thick and tightly packed, further limiting tire flex. It’s not a poorly made tire as much as it is a poorly designed tire.
Rubber Compound: 10/20
- These are far too hard for rock crawling of any type, and best suited for casual trail driving. These tires would be much better suited for U4 racing over a rough, sharp-rock terrain.
Tread Life: 5/5
- Most likely these tires will last many years of use, and probably succumb to rot and degradation from UV light before they actually wear through the tread pattern.
Versatility: 2/5
- The hard rubber will limit these to casual trail driving or cruising around in your back yard. They really have no business tackling anything remotely challenging on the trail.
Total Score: 52/100
Pros
Cons
Specifications
- Tough, durable tire.
- Inexpensive.
- Good dimensional uniformity with a clearly defined wheel bead lip.
Cons
- Hard-rubber compound and thick carcass result in poor traction.
- Foams need to be upgraded be replaced.
Specifications
- Brand: Injora
- Size: 114mm x 45mm for 1.9” wheel
- Tread Pattern: Non directional, symmetrical.
- Item number: CRAW20161014
- Price: $12.99 per pair.
Publish Date: 11/23/2021