Tips on setting tire pressures?

Still learning…

Just found out why my rear tires were wearing on the inside last week.

And why was that?..

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Within that “Know Your Kart Tyres: Part 2” column there is talk of coning and the why’s and how’s to fix

Oh, I see. I thought you found something unique that had a story attached. Good deal. :slight_smile:

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Can anyone fill in on the subject?

Sure, what are you looking for though? Info on tyre pressures?

I would like to understand how to read the tyre wear and how to use the information, as I wrote in an earlier post.

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Basically, the important ones:
Front graining = understeer, add front grip
Rear graining = oversteer, add rear grip
Blistering = kart is binding, lower tire pressure

Tires should be smooth and evenly worn all around after each session.

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Thanks, TJ. But how does good wear, graining and blistering actually look? The link doesn’t actually show how it looks and I haven’t found any good pictures that show it very well.

Would you say that blistering almost always come from binding, or could it be from sliding as well?

Sliding will always yield graining. It’ll look like long rows or waves running the length of the tire. Here’s an old Bridgestone YKC I had laying around the shop that clearly shows that:

Blistering usually only occurs on softer tires. I’ve seen it pretty often on MG Yellows/Evincos. I don’t have a photo of that unfortunately.

Of course there could be some confusion in terminology from one person to another as well. I’ve heard some people refer to blistering and graining as the same thing.

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Thanks. Without pictures, it’s really hard to discuss this, since, as you say, one person’s definition may be different than someone else’s.

Do you have a picture of good tyre wear?

That’s the biggest challenge I think. Often I’ve seen delamination described as blistering.

There’s gotta be a good resource out there for reading tires. I know there are books dedicated to tire performance.

@Christopher is a dab hand at reading them in Karting too. Maybe he’ll chime in and impart the basics.

I don’t have any good wear pictures, but the tire should be basically smooth. No bumps, no waves.

3 posts were split to a new topic: DIY Tire Temp Monitoring with Arduino

This question may be more than just about tire pressures so feel free to move if it’s on the wrong location. This weekend I had ran for the first time on a newly paved track and it was cold out, wear I could not find grip, at all, literally became a drifter over night lol. Now I was running the same psi I ran last year where the grip was plenty on the old track, my question is when your running on a track with no grip do you typically run higher pressures or lower? I was thinking lower since your sliding? I did try to swing the front and rear to a tighter setup with no luck.

How did others seem to compare?

Sometimes when the track is fresh, the sealant on the pavement offers so little grip that playing with pressures has limited effect. The traction is so low. All you can do is make the most of your chassis setup to get it close the the balance you want.

Otherwise, since a new surface is a wide swing in surface condition, might as well take a wide swing at pressures… try high, try low and see what happens.

I would agree with James that on a newly paved surface, there isn’t much you can do with pressures usually. It’s just going to be a skating rink no matter what. I would try higher pressures first though, just to see if getting some extra heat in the tires has any effect.

Otherwise, it’s going to be about putting a lot of grip into the chassis and doing the best you can. Fortunately in those situations, everyone is in the same boat.

If you have a wet setup, you could nearly throw that on and “loosen” it from there. You have a similar situation to the wet in that with the reduced grip there’s not enough lateral force to really unload your inside rear wheel. So you add more caster and/or track width on the front to help it lift the wheel on entry, and narrow the rear track to help keep it up there a little longer.

Thanks for the input! Everyone was in the same boat and times were definitely slow. It just seemed like the more experienced drivers were finding more grip than me, but I’ve never raced or setup for rain before so I figured I would try chassis changed before touching tire pressures figuring those were bigger swings then just a few psi… I definitely noticed how much I needed to adjust my driving( or lack there of) but I’ll touch on that in another post and leave this one to tires… it’s the first time I’ve ever seen my tires look so smooth after driving, yikes IMG_20180501_170259

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Like a baby’s head. :hugs: