I misread this. I have the Yellows at 3/4 stiff. Turning it 1/4 turn would not equal full stiff, I'm guessing. My bad.

As for the other suggestion to raise/lower the car, i completely forgot that I lowered my perches in the rear for the new setup. I did so to help prevent unwanted oversteer.

 

I was at this same event with Skip

I kept lowering my pressures the whole weekend, and ended up with 35.5-36 hot pressures (left front was 37)

Car felt better with lower pressures.... although I think I might have got slightly too low. 36 was better than 45 and 41, but 38 probably would have been best.

Im on smaller 225-245 tires.... And my car was pushing.

Just as an experiment skip... try measureing the contact patch of your new tires and then your old. I have a feeling your new tires have more stagger.

 

Wider tires will run cooler (not heat up as much) and have a lower optimal hot pressure, both due to the relative stiffer walls/less flexing (lower aspect ratio).

Why are there suggestions to stiffen the front more when the car is altready understeering?

Skip, even with same size tires (255's) all around and more camber in front than in rear, a stock front bar (even with a stock rear bar) is more than enough stiff up front (I believe most of the other guys also running non-staggered also do not use a stiffer front bar). So your Gendron may be contributing to your understeer. My Comptech was retired a long time ago.

 

Thanks, Richard. I was under the impression stiffening the front keeps the rear in check. The odd thing is that I never experienced before or at least not as much. We did make a wing adjustment after the first session that was a plus in some areas. Perhaps an adjustment on the bar and dialing back the wing a tad might be the ticket. Of course, I'll try one at a time.

The next track will be shorter in length and only has two hard braking zones, however, it does have a medium stright linked to the front straight by a high speed turn. Carrying maximum speed through that is a recipe for success at that track.

If you're using RA-1's, what is generally your target pressure front and rear?

 

"Why are there suggestions to stiffen the front more when the car is altready understeering?"

Well... there's the dabate. Go with what works! Try different settings.
For me, I found that when I stiffened the front suspension via adjustments on the KWs, that my machine could enter a corner a bit faster and not slide - or understeer. My theory proved itself in that roll is first induced by the front and if that roll can be checked, then the rest of the car will follow.

Where there should be lesser debate is driving your car as to how it is set up. Analyze and adapt. Experiment. That is the entire fun of motorsports.

Enjoy!

 

Because I'm running 255's all around (RA1's), I target around 36 hot all around. You may want to hit a pound more in front (or less in rear) because of your stagger. Starting pressure depends on the track and ambient temp etc, so it's always necessary to adjust after every session as things do change between sessions. I generally start at around 27-29. And the tires will not heat up to equal pressures all around due to the specific track layout and car's handling, so another reason to adjust after each session. Havng said all this, it's much better to use a pyrometer and go by optimal temp (which I believe may not correlate with pressure), but I never had one.

Stiffening the front will in general increase understeer, and you said you had understeer, so that's why I asked (to the others who were recommending it). A wing is critical for rear stability, especially with non-staggered tires, but you have one, so I would not be afraid to put the stock front bar back in (unless the Gendron can adjust to similar softness). Do you have in a rear bar?

[I know it's hard to remove a mod that you paid a lot for, as I had to do with the Comptech ajd. bar, but it really improved the understeer.]

 

Get a cheap pyrometer. It's a great ways to see what your tires are actually doing and if you have the proper alignment and pressures.

I had one tire that was always lower in pressure and colder that the others. When the car was cornered weight we found that corner to be lighter than the others, which contributed to the colder temperatures.

 

In case you already don't know about pyrometers; if u'r going to use em for tires, always get the probe type and not the IR surface type.

 

Yep. Forgot about corner weighting. Great point! That could also explain why one corner is working harder than the others.

 

I held off getting the car re-weighted after the removal of the top/interior stuff until I was signed off to ride solo. I'll be having it done again before my next event.