Wild Ice Racing Dual Tire Camaro Is a Crazy Build
If one is good, two is better! This ice racing Camaro uses two sets of studded tires on each corner for more grip!
Finland is known for a number of things. Cold weather. Aurora Borealis. Happy citizens. And they are also known for having some wild engineering ideas with equally wild drivers. Since Finland has a very northern climate, they have to find ways to have fun in the snow and on the ice. Naturally, racing on a frozen lake means race tracks are everywhere.
Built by YouTuber Pekka Palmgren, this split bumper Camaro is primarily used for motorsport. It started life as a hillclimb car. A 454 plucked from a 1991 Suburban is now part of this Camaro’s power plant, according to The Drive. Simple upgrades have brought power up to about 400 horses. But despite the big power, summer months are few and far between. So why not race on frozen water, too?
Ice racing is actually not that much different than racing on a road course. Grip is of highest priority. On snow, skinnier tires are the best way forward. Narrow tires put the highest pressure directly under the car. Wide tires float over snow rather than dig in. But on ice? You need studs on your tires. Lots of them. And you need studded tires on your drive wheels, and your steer wheels, too.
Palmgren took this idea to the extreme by adding essentially dually tires to both the front and rear to the Camaro. But that’s not all that’s been done. Front suspension has new upper control arms to give better camber and caster angles. Now, we’re familiar with how camber and caster work on the pavement. However ice is so inconsistent that we imagine suspension compression from side loads would mean you’d want as little camber as possible… we think.
After all, with the dually tires, you don’t want them at any other angle than 0 for best contact patch. Those wheels by the way are quite interesting. The inside set is mounted with the usual 5 lugs. The outside set is mounted to the inside set. Balancing? Probably don’t need that during ice racing conditions.
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