Do wider tires hook better?
Now, not to belabor the point but FRICTION has nothing to do with traction, acceleration, or anything really in this application. Tire pressure is lowered so that sidewall deformation (flex) can occur and somtimes set down a little larger footprint (not friction, remember friction is independent of surface area so that would be ADHESION). When you have a sticky tire sidewall flex can take some of the abuse off the rear end and the energy is not lost, just stored in the sidewall and released when the tire returns to it's "original shape". You will notice a better 60' but tend to sacrifice some on the big end of the track. This is because the whole time you go down the track the tire is under inflated and takes more energy to cause angular acceleration (speed up) If you have two identical cars with one has a DR inflated to street spec and one is on track tire pressure and they "race" from a roll (
) the car with the higher psi will win because there is no energy lost in the sidewall of the tire being under inflated. It takes energy for the under inflated tires sidewall to continually change shape as it goes down the road this just means less power being translated to making you accelerate. This same concept can be applied to gas millage. Take two identical cars have one inflate their tires to 25psi and one to 35 psi and go on a road trip, the car with 35psi will get better gas millage. So as you can see friction is erroneous in this application.Cliff Notes: Afro is right but for the wrong reason, higher psi is better acceleration, but lower psi tends to yield a better launch
Last edited by 03_r6; Dec 29, 2008 at 09:16 AM.
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