Craig Boyle wrote:
>Any insights as to the best/correct operating
>temperature for tires?
>
>At cold events I try and keep my tires warm,
Just curious, how? I keep my engine running between runs so, that helps the
fronts but the rears are "on-their-own", so to speak.
at hot
>events I try and keep them cool - but this is all seat
>of the pants. It would be nice to know what the right
>temp to be at is and take pyrometer readings to make
>sure I'm therabouts.
At our recent Divisional, I didn't cool the tires on my SS GS for Saturday
and, even with only one driver, "went" into push on second and third runs.
After talking with Jim Martin and Ricky Hines, who'd taken tire temps on
Saturday, I cooled my fronts on Sunday. They were, with two drivers in the
Z06 and 90 degree heat on Saturday, getting greasy-loose on the rears in
later runs. Their pyrometer readings for the later runs were upwards to 140
degrees on their rears. On Sunday they water-cooled both fronts and rears
with good results.
My fronts, generally, get a lot hotter than my rears, and although I don't,
regularly, measure temps the fronts will frequently get too hot for me to
keep my hand on them. That WAS the case on both Saturday and Sunday, after
my first runs. On Sunday, with water cooling on the fronts, only, before
second and third runs (the rears were not so hot I couldn't keep my hand on
them) the front stuck better and I was, actually, able to stiffen the front
bar for my last run without generating any push problems.
Seat-of-the-pants conclusion: I probably wasn't getting my fronts to more
than 120-130 on first runs and after watering (tread, sidewalls and wheels)
probably got them down to 100-110. They definitly worked better in the lower
temp area on later runs.
All of the above anecdotal info applies to autocross compound Hoosier
Radials.
Don
|