Im tuning a open class pan car with BL motor and have problems with corner & power-on traction in the rear. After doing allot of search's I have come up with conflicting information. Some say a narrow tire will provide better traction or bite on carpet, and others say wider gives better traction. From what Iv done I thought wider gave better traction.

Which compound will give me the best bite? Im not worried about rolling resistance.

Thanks

Pinks.

I've always narrowed the left-rear tire to reduce rotating mass and rolling resistance; wider tires have more surface area and offer more traction as a result. For what you're doing, I'd keep 'em wide.

I have always thought the same thing about the wide tire giving more tracton but recently someone told me that a slightly narrower tire will give more traction due to the fact that the same weight is spread over a smaller area, hence more traction.:confused: I have not personally tried it yet. Maybe someone that has could explain.
Best traction tire...PINKS

If thats true Indy cars should use bike tires then.

Narrow tires more side bite but less forward bite:cool:

?

Steve

Thanks.

I was wondering weather there was a difference between forward & side bite.

I cant lay down the power on the straights (spins out) so I was going to go wider than stock on the rear. But that will effect the cornering ability.

If its more side bite only, than wouldn't you use a narrowed right and a full left?

Sounds like to me it would be easier on you to stick with standard width tires. Try playing around with moving your left rear hub out (shim). That should help with more forward bit coming off the corners.



Brian

There is no exact answer to this, a lot of this depends upon the sureface your racing on. Wider tires are more efficient in making grip, in other words, there is less slip angle induced drag for a given amount of lateral force. Hence the reason why modern race cars typically utilize the widest tire possible.

Tire width on real race cars is usually proportional to the tires dynamic load while cornering. This is why you see extremely wide right side tires on "open tire rules" modifieds. This is due to to tire heat more than anything else. A wider tire can make a certain amount of grip, with less overall temperature build up than a narrower tire. The only time wider tires are usually worse is when you can't get a wider tire to get up to its operating temperature.

Now on R/C cars, foam tires on carpet behave differently, and tire heat is not much of any issue and I don't think there are any steadfast rules of thumb. I personally believe that trial and error is still the best method to figure out what you are trying to determine.

S & B

Thanks S&B. Could you elaborate more on the RC car tires though. Do you sacrifice cornering grip when you widen a foam wheel for added forward grip?

Thanks

Sounds like you need more weight on the left rear tire. Try starting at 300 grams if you have access to a scale. Other wise just move you equipment around or adjust the side shocks to put more pressure on the LR.

Wider is always better. TRC makes a platnium that is softer than a pink but wears the same.

If its more side bite only, than wouldn't you use a narrowed right and a full left?
Close , but just the opposite is what you would do...the right gets more and more weight transfered to it in the turn, so if the right tire is suspect of loosing side bite, or not having enough, it it more of a tire compound choosen problem, or a side spring preoblem. The left rear, carries more weight to be gin with on the straights, but, gives it over to the right side, (front and rear) through the turns...here a narrow tire, may yield more bite, as the weight transfers to other places, and also have a reduced forward bite effect which can help out if a can is pushig out to the wall on the turns exit.

there are other benifits, and disadvantages as well but I cant think of them all.

My oppinion is, a narrow FOAM tire is more of a fine tuning thing, your real close to perfect, and want that extra 1/10th to come off....then it's time for a narrow tire experiment....depending on the compound being used this can get expensive, for those on budgets

...something I find strange with the tire width issue is....WAY back when we ran 6 cell, we were cutting our rears to 1.5" or less on both rears. Doing everything to reduce corner drag and scrub.

Once we switched to 4 cell, it seems the wide tires came back and nobody runs the old idea of narrows.

I would think w/ 4 cell, we don't have the power and shouldn't need as much traction...not to mention I'd think the drag issue would be even more critical.