lateapex
Aerospace
- Sep 24, 2007
- 3
Hi all,
I'm running an open-wheel formula car, on GY 160 bias-ply slicks. I am having a problem with graining and wear on the inner portion of my front and rear tires. When I get to Watkins Glen, and using say 1.5 deg front and ¾ deg rear static camber, the inside edges of my tires grain heavily and wear rapidly. The tires do not last long like this- it doesn’t take long for the inner ¼ or so to be worn away, ruining the tires.
I’m not sure why, but this wear and graining aren’t as noticeable at other tracks, such as VIR, where the turns are mostly flatter, slower, shorter in duration. At Watkins the turns are banked, faster, and longer.
Using less static camber (0 deg static), seems to fix the wear problem, but not the heavy graining. The graining merely becomes slightly less heavy, while spreading outward over more of the tire tread.
Using recorded data of damper position, I can work out that with 0 deg static camber, the rear tire is at pretty close to 0 deg when heavily loaded on the track. In other words, 0 deg static equals 0 deg dynamic. So, even at 0 deg camber on the track, the inside portions of my tires are STILL graining.
Why is the inner half of my tire still graining, even at 0 deg dynamic camber on the track and more importantly how do I get it to stop? Can running insufficient negative camber actually make the inner portion of the tire grain/wear more? I’d imagine due to some sort of distortion or buckling of the sidewall or tread? And is more negative camber the answer?
I’d love to run w/ more camber, lap times are definitely faster that way, but the tires won’t last long. I need to be able to run more camber w/o the horrible tire wear.
Any ideas or insight would be greatly appreciated. I can provide plenty more detail if needed, just trying to explain the gist of the problem for starters.
Thanks,
Art
I'm running an open-wheel formula car, on GY 160 bias-ply slicks. I am having a problem with graining and wear on the inner portion of my front and rear tires. When I get to Watkins Glen, and using say 1.5 deg front and ¾ deg rear static camber, the inside edges of my tires grain heavily and wear rapidly. The tires do not last long like this- it doesn’t take long for the inner ¼ or so to be worn away, ruining the tires.
I’m not sure why, but this wear and graining aren’t as noticeable at other tracks, such as VIR, where the turns are mostly flatter, slower, shorter in duration. At Watkins the turns are banked, faster, and longer.
Using less static camber (0 deg static), seems to fix the wear problem, but not the heavy graining. The graining merely becomes slightly less heavy, while spreading outward over more of the tire tread.
Using recorded data of damper position, I can work out that with 0 deg static camber, the rear tire is at pretty close to 0 deg when heavily loaded on the track. In other words, 0 deg static equals 0 deg dynamic. So, even at 0 deg camber on the track, the inside portions of my tires are STILL graining.
Why is the inner half of my tire still graining, even at 0 deg dynamic camber on the track and more importantly how do I get it to stop? Can running insufficient negative camber actually make the inner portion of the tire grain/wear more? I’d imagine due to some sort of distortion or buckling of the sidewall or tread? And is more negative camber the answer?
I’d love to run w/ more camber, lap times are definitely faster that way, but the tires won’t last long. I need to be able to run more camber w/o the horrible tire wear.
Any ideas or insight would be greatly appreciated. I can provide plenty more detail if needed, just trying to explain the gist of the problem for starters.
Thanks,
Art
