Tyre Questions

[krank]

Hi,

I use R. van Rijn's RD Setup Guide a lot, and I have just found the "tune your car in 21 steps" guide, too, which are great guides for the sim-only semi-casual racer like me. I however did not find anwsers for some questions, or I'm not sure if I understand it correctly, and I'd be pleased to see your comments. I hope some real racers will also share their thoughts.

First, I sometimes feel my car's balance, grip and traction is quite acceptable, but, as the only problem, the car starts sliding in many turns of a given track. It seems that I cannot find out what to change in my driving style or car setup to eliminate sliding. It is also surprising on these track how quickly the car starts sliding when left-foot braking, and it is also sliding when I brake with no gas applied. Could you point me out what settings to look for? Is it coupled with tyre pressure or suspension?

As per tyre pressure and temperature, the RD setup guide makes only an estimation that WTCC car's tyre temperature should be around 95 degree Celsius. This may be, however, too generic. Sometimes I cannot get my tyres colder than 105 Celsius, and sometimes my rear tyres stay at 85 Celsius after several laps. What are the acceptable temperature ranges for WTCC car front and rear tyres?

Tyres again, which is more important, to try to set the left and front tyres to have approximately the same temperature (after a few laps), or to have the same pressure after a few laps? Sometimes I find there is 10+ Celsius difference between left and right tyres, while the difference in pressure is only 1 kPa (after 4-5 laps, of course).

And can someone explain me (just wondering) how is that lower tyre pressure increases tyre temp? For me it was more logical that a tyre with more pressure gets warmer, since there is more air which gets compressed once the temperature increases due to track contact, and the more air in the same amount of space could make higher temperature.

Thanks for all of your comments.
krank

 

[ouvert]

probably no reason to reply now but maybe for other racers... and I'm bored at work...

-sliding on breaking... check your brake balance and pressure.. in fwd cars default setup is too much on front tyres

-different tyre temps... well if you have track with mostly left hand corners load distribution in tyres wont be symmetrical.. you could do asymmetrical setup or just live with it. in some cars it is hard to get up to ideal tyre temp (~90°) without compromising good suspension setting.. I'd rather have 85° on tyres than less stable drive.

- less pressure in tyres = more contact with road = more resistance = more heating

 

[Arne Dopudja]

First, I sometimes feel my car's balance, grip and traction is quite acceptable, but, as the only problem, the car starts sliding in many turns of a given track. It seems that I cannot find out what to change in my driving style or car setup to eliminate sliding. It is also surprising on these track how quickly the car starts sliding when left-foot braking, and it is also sliding when I brake with no gas applied. Could you point me out what settings to look for? Is it coupled with tyre pressure or suspension?

First, you have to be really smooth. no sudden moves. Even when applying brakes and accelerating. Forget about tires and camber for now. Those things get you tire durability and some small time gain over the course of the race. Your problem is the balance of the car. Try using brake bias closer to 50:50 (I use around 51.5:48.5 give or take 0.5 depending on the track and tire status.) I use the rear wing; Slow tracks like Pau, setting is 4-5, most of the tracks I use 3 and for Monza I think I use 2. Front ride height should be 8.0, rear I use 0.2 cm per wing setting (So wing 3=8.6cm rear ride height). Again, give or take 0.1, depends on the behaviour. If you want to reduce the rear stepping out, lower the rear anti roll bar. At some point it will start to understeer instead.
That should cover the basic problems.
Increasing front slow bump +2 and fast bump +1 can also help with the weight transfer not being so violent which is friendlier o LFB.
Also hatchbacks tend to be more tail happy. God help you if you race with the Toledo. I do it when I want to torture myself.

And lower pressure = lower temperature. That is how it is ingame. Aim for the inner temperatures to be around 90° and the outer between 6-10° less with the central temp being 1-2° higher than outer (If you have 85-84-83, you can increase negative camber and reduce pressure to achieve 90-81-80)