Sam James Wheel pants

Hello Everyone!
Could anyone give me a run down of Sam James wheel pants. Are they faster than Van's? How are they to fit? Any thoughts or opinions would be very much appreciated.
Thanks

20 mph faster

KirkGrovesRV8 said:

Hello Everyone!
Could anyone give me a run down of Sam James wheel pants. Are they faster than Van's? How are they to fit? Any thoughts or opinions would be very much appreciated.Thanks

Click to expand...

They are 20 mph faster cost 1/3rd and weigh 1/2 of Van's pants....

Put you keyboards away, Just kidding. I can't give you absolute values but can tell you a little about them and I can recommend them.

The SamJames pants are copies of Lightspeed wheel pants (electronic ignition maker and speed parts for vari/long-ezs and rv's). I have a set of SJ pants and they are basically a heavy duty version of Lightspeeds pants, which I understand have a little less lay-ups and are lighter. You can also buy smaller than standard versions to fit the LAMB tire, which are a few inches smaller than the standard 5X5 tire.

Whether you use the standard Van's or Standard Sam James I like the looks of Sam James pants. The fastest RV's: Dave Anders, Tracy Saylor and another 2 or 3 which I can't think of, have SJ pants.

You want an absolute number I don't know of anyone who switched to make a real evaluation of speed. Van's pants I know work but they are too balloon bulbous looking for my taste. In my opinion the SJ/LS style should be a little faster because they are smaller while maintaining the "pressure recovery" theoretical shape.

Construction and quality of the SJ wheel pant is very good and the only down side is you have to make your own bracket from plans, which is no big deal. At the time I bought mine they came with plans to make brackets. You might be able to modify the stock Van brackets or buy some after market stainless steel ones for Van's pants and fit them. The SS brackets should be better than the stock aluminum ones that tend to crack on some builder?s installations on Van's wheel pants.

Good Luck, George

Thanks for the reply George,
No I was not looking for any "hard numbers" I just wanted to get a feel for what people thought of them.
Thanks again

I have the full sized SJ pants on my RV-6. Van's didn't offer 2 piece pants or low drag (pressure recovery) pants when I purchased the SJ pants.

Personally, I think Van's current 2 piece pants are more attractive than the SJ version. Also, I believe Van's pants come with all of the brackets and hardware, while I had to source material and then cut and bend the attachment brackets for the SJ pants. Beyond that, the fiberglass quality on Van's current offering seems to be better than on the SJ pants I got.

As to which are faster - who knows? I think Sam and Van's both claim similar speed increases over the standard pants. The very fastest RV's (Tracy Saylor's RV-6 and Dave Ander's -4) do use SJ pants. In fact, both use the Lamb wheel/tire combination which is significantly smaller than the stock wheel/tire for the RV. This allows them to use smaller than standard wheelpants. The small wheel/tire/wheelpant combination adds several mph at the compromise of any utility on non-paved fields.