- Joined
- Apr 15, 2006
- Messages
- 10,695
- Car(s)
- EK9/Civic
Unfortunately I found out that tire pressure is as important as having the correct alignment on your car, or as having your correct suspension setup.
I went to the track and started racing with 30 PSI on all tires, after a couple of laps the car had good grip, it was 11 am, and I can barely see the sun, so the track was a little "cold".
The race came, I started in the 22th position and I managed to go up to 9th place.. but ...
I had serious problems after the third lap, the car wont grip at all, I suffer from serious under steer and I had to attack the corners slower because I lost a lot of grip specially exiting the corners.
I'll share a video of that race:
YouTube - DC2 AutoX run #2
In that race I was able to make a "hot" lap of 1.36.400.
When I went to the pits all my tire pressure where about 33 to 35 psi, BUT the front left tire had a incredible tire pressure of 45 PSI.
I was like wtf happen here? maybe I made a mistake and instead of inflated it to 30 psi I inflated the tire to 40 psi.
Time passed, and I went to the track again, I ran for 10 - 12 laps, and again, the same problem, after the 3rd or 4th lap I started loosing grip, so I again went to pits, drank a gatorade, and a friend of mine passed in front of me, he is a experienced driver, he has been racing for like 10 years now, and in that track since 2003. So we chatted a little, and I mentioned him my issue with the fron left tire pressure, he started laughing, I wanted to kick his ass lol, and he said to me OF COURSE that will happen, 80 % of the corners here are clockwise! run 27 PSI MAX on your front left tire. That tire suffers a lot of stress during the race, and it gets hotter so the tire pressure rises.
Ok then, I did what my friend told me and VOILA, hehehe I had 2 good hot laps, one of 1.35.6 and one of 1.35.1 Almost 1.3 seconds faster than my last time laps
So my recommendation is, ask to the experts and analyze well the track, then choose your tire pressure, but a good way to start is to run 30 psi on all tires.
I forgot to mention that I was using potenza RE01-R on 16 inch wheels.
Hope this write up to help you guys, and sorry for my bad english