Re: What kind of cornering g forces are you guys recording?
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:20 am
Ah, so your car is pretty heavily modified, but still streetable. Technically, so is mine, but without A/C, it's pretty brutal in the Texas summers. And since the spherical bushings aren't sealed, they shouldn't be driven in the rain, so my car's street use is pretty much relegated to driving to and from the track, and picking up a few groceries on the way home.
I'm running a lot of negative camber: -3.5 degrees up front, and -2.7 degrees in back. The entire suspension set-up was done per the recommendations of one of the best Porsche track prep guys around, and the g-forces I'm seeing, on relatively narrow wheels (I would love a set of 17 x 10.5's all around, but given my car's only-for-Porsche bolt pattern, this would mean going custom, which would lighten my wallet by nearly $6K - ouch), seem to indicate that he knows what he's doing.
Interesting observations about tire pressures. I was running 36 psi cold in the Rival S's, and they seemed pretty happy there, but when I started with this value in the Nitto's, my times were abysmal. So, on the advice of the lead instructor, I dropped the pressure to 36 psi hot (equivalent to about 31 psi cold), and my times dropped by about a second and a half on the 0.92 mile track. So your observation about more race-oriented tires needing less pressure seems to be spot on. I will experiment with this going forward. And no, I haven't checked my tire temps with a pyrometer yet, although I plan to do that when I take some private lessons next month. My wear patterns have always been very uniform across the tire face across multiple sets of tires, so I assume the camber, and the pressures I'd been running, were pretty reasonable.
I'm running a lot of negative camber: -3.5 degrees up front, and -2.7 degrees in back. The entire suspension set-up was done per the recommendations of one of the best Porsche track prep guys around, and the g-forces I'm seeing, on relatively narrow wheels (I would love a set of 17 x 10.5's all around, but given my car's only-for-Porsche bolt pattern, this would mean going custom, which would lighten my wallet by nearly $6K - ouch), seem to indicate that he knows what he's doing.
Interesting observations about tire pressures. I was running 36 psi cold in the Rival S's, and they seemed pretty happy there, but when I started with this value in the Nitto's, my times were abysmal. So, on the advice of the lead instructor, I dropped the pressure to 36 psi hot (equivalent to about 31 psi cold), and my times dropped by about a second and a half on the 0.92 mile track. So your observation about more race-oriented tires needing less pressure seems to be spot on. I will experiment with this going forward. And no, I haven't checked my tire temps with a pyrometer yet, although I plan to do that when I take some private lessons next month. My wear patterns have always been very uniform across the tire face across multiple sets of tires, so I assume the camber, and the pressures I'd been running, were pretty reasonable.