Today I ran my car with a new alignment with much more camber

2.5 front and about 3.5 rear.

The first session I went out with newly shaved RA1's, the car felt pretty good and more stable in the corners and I was within a second or 2 of my best lap time.

I came in and checked the tire pressures, they were around 46 hot, if I would have ran them that high with my previous alignment I would have been sliding all over the place.

I bled them down to around 38 hot and they seemed better but only a little bit.

I also think my shocks are heating up too much now, the car is a mushy pile of poo at the end of the session

My question is can you (or should you) run higher hot pressures with more camber?

Lastly I bought a tire pyrometer (poke type) what kind of tire temps should I shoot for? I was able to get a few readings (after a cool down lap and a return to the paddock. I read 185 as the highest temp (Left front) the other tires were cooler, and the temps didn

 

no the pressures should be (about) the same.

What direction was the track? got a track map? what shocks (kws IIRC)

 

[QUOTE=gfacter,May 18 2006, 04:44 PM] Lastly I bought a tire pyrometer (poke type) what kind of tire temps should I shoot for? I was able to get a few readings (after a cool down lap and a return to the paddock.

 

With the tire pyrometer, you probably also want to measure inner middle and outer of the tire. That way you can tell if you have too much or too little camber.

 

The track is clockwise with some really fast right hand turns and only 2 real left hand turns.

The shocks are KW's perhaps they need a rebuild? (not sure if that is possible)

Summit Point

 

Perhaps the tires were just realy good their first real heat cycle even though I had too much pressure in them and now they are just going to be slow since I cooked them?

 

You should need LESS tire pressure with more camber. If the outside is within 10 degrees of the inner area, I would not worry about it.

48 hot is too high for RA-1s in my opinion, get them into the high 30s/low 40s.

If you did not check temps immediatly they will not be accurate and get inside/midddle/outside temps.

Don't worry about cooking RA-1s, they will recover since they are pretty much indestructable.

If the car feels good at the beginning of the session and a "mushy pile of poo" at the end, you have only two variables to worry about 1) shocks and 2) tires. The RA-1s do not turn to mushy piles of poo even when overheated (they just stop gripping) so it sound like the shocks. They are worn or your settings are not ideal?

 

And the 3rd variable would be tire pressure. When I run too high tire pressure, the car feels good the 1st half of the session and goes downhill towards the end.

 

The tires were pretty much sorted out after the first session. I just emailed KW about rebuilding the dampers.