Goodies for coming track season

[NavsENG]

What tires are you using? It's pretty hard to get good usable tire temp data anyways, how and when the temps are pulled can make a big difference. I wouldn't adjust on temp alone..

It's funny I was listening to the Ross Bentley podcast a while ago and I forget who the other guy is but he is a 30+ year crew chief and very sharp. He goes on for about 10 min about tire temps and blah blah, basically his conclusion was he has never made an adjustment based on tire temperature because the data is simply inaccurate.

For an s550 the -3 camber range is generally regarded as about what you're looking for. Some tires may want a little less or a little more but you are likely within the range of what it should be.

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[TeeLew]

It's funny I was listening to the Ross Bentley podcast a while ago and I forget who the other guy is but he is a 30+ year crew chief and very sharp. He goes on for about 10 min about tire temps and blah blah, basically his conclusion was he has never made an adjustment based on tire temperature because the data is simply inaccurate.

I'd have to listen to this podcast to comment directly on what was said, but, in general, I disagree. You might not make an adjustment *strictly* based on tire temps, but it is good information to be used with wear/pressure/balance/track/etc data to assess camber settings, especially if you're working with the same model of tire over a long period of time. I don't understand the comment about the information being inaccurate. That's also not correct if you have any sort of help. We're not splitting the atom here.

Having said this, there is no 'magic' tire temp spread. On an 'average' road course, the inside front will usually be ~15-25*C (~30-50*F) hotter than the outside, with the middle between them. On very 'handed' tracks, ovals being the most obvious, the inside tires may have very little split at all. Rears tend to work better with slightly less split, as they may need to be biased toward corner exit longitudinal traction (i.e. less camber).

 

[NavsENG]

No dumb questions with Jeff Braun : Episode 11

Here you can listen to them talking about tire temps.

This is part of the speed secrets podcast on Spotify in case you're interested.

I am not saying its worthless, if it works for you and you know how to use the data that's great. I just haven't had much luck taking tire temps and having any usable data out of it.

 

[NavsENG]

I'd have to listen to this podcast to comment directly on what was said, but, in general, I disagree. You might not make an adjustment *strictly* based on tire temps, but it is good information to be used with wear/pressure/balance/track/etc data to assess camber settings, especially if you're working with the same model of tire over a long period of time. I don't understand the comment about the information being inaccurate. That's also not correct if you have any sort of help. We're not splitting the atom here.

Having said this, there is no 'magic' tire temp spread. On an 'average' road course, the inside front will usually be ~15-25*C (~30-50*F) hotter than the outside, with the middle between them. On very 'handed' tracks, ovals being the most obvious, the inside tires may have very little split at all. Rears tend to work better with slightly less split, as they may need to be biased toward corner exit longitudinal traction (i.e. less camber).

Didn't get you quoted but see my previous message, check that episode out its interesting to hear a race engineer and a driving coach talk about this.

 

[VictorH]

Are you guys talking about IR surface temps? I'm no tire expert but the competitive go-kart and some other race car guys use a needle-type temp thermo-couple to get something close to the temp near the cords across the tire surface (inside, middle, outside). I know some other high-end folks use a live IR array in the car at speed to measure surface temps across the tread at speed.
If most everyone here is using IR temp gun in the hot pit that might be one source of variability leading to data that's not very helpful.

 

[TeeLew]

(I listened to the T.P. portion)

I'm well aware of both Ross and Jeff. I have a lot of respect for Jeff and if you really listen to what he's saying, we're not far apart. Neither one of us think a certain temp spread is magic, but something to be used to build a database of info to determine track and tire trends. Real time measurements would be a bigger benefit, no question, and Jeff is more interested in those temps, naturally. Frankly, I think if he's not monitoring the temperatures of his tires, then he might be missing something. His comments about the relative importance of pressures vs. temps is spot on as is his criticism of the legacy effects of pit-lane measurements. Pressures are, by far, the more important of the two readings, but that doesn't mean the temps are useless. They are just lower in importance...until they're not.

If we're looking at temps in real-time telemetry, then he's talking IR. If we're looking at the temps in the pits, then use a probe. IR guns are pretty much useless in the pits, because it doesn't let you know the temperature of the carcass of the tire. The carcass transfers heat a lot slower than the surface, so probe temps give you a reasonable measure of gross energy distribution across the face of the tire. It's all information worth knowing.

 

[bnightstar]

The carcass transfers heat a lot slower than the surface, so probe temps give you a reasonable measure of gross energy distribution across the face of the tire. It's all information worth knowing.

Yes this is true and I do use IR gun in the pits after a lap but as long as you use consistent method for measurement some data is better than no data. And tire temps inside/middle/outside tells you a lot about if the pressures are correct or not and if your camber is a lot or not. Over the last 2 seasons I use that method and it's very useful to figure out. I know for a fact that -3.2 camber is more than I need for my AR-1's on my local track. Because the track don't have any camber changes in curbs as it's a flat airfield so closer to an autocross track than real track. This might not be the case for a track like Spa or Nurburgring where each corner has elevation changes, on and off camber corners etc. But the data is good enough for me. Will try to find the temps sheet as I suspect is somewhere in the car but I didn't looked. This measurements helped me realise that my start pressures were low so I moved them some. With our heavy cars anything you can do to prolong the life of the tires like correct pressures, camber etc is a huge difference on the tires budget.

 

[gone_n_60]

and I got sway bars?

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