Tyre pressures for reducing understeer

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Originally Posted by iainel

Talk about throwing wild accusations. :tosser: It was just a fcuking question regarding something I've read.

And for the record my car's not lowered stupid amounts, and it's not to impress anybody (it's not even styled). It has the best suspension I can afford on it, and I just want the best out of what I've got! And if simple things like playing with adjustable shocks and changing tyre pressure can help then that's all good.

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I understand that you just try to get the best out of it! Let me give you some tips!
Front camber CAN be adjust by camberbolts! The best ones can be found by a company called "special products" it wil give you a adjust range off aproxx 1,75 degrees.
Caster is big problem with ALL nova's! The bigger the caster the better! In standerd suspensions you can only try to get left en rightside even! to do so you have to work with shims on your TCA(radiator side) you can also try to machine the TCA to shorten de lenght of the TCA witch will give you more caster! Many people do not understand te need of a big caster angle! To understand me, you have to look at the front wheels of a mercedes-benz that is making a very short U-turn. these cars show a big camber change in cornes! and that's the secret to loose the understeer!!
About the rear! Alignement can be changed! again the company "special products" has beautifull shims witch allows you to change camber and toe, all in te same time!

For road use, try to get caster arround 2 degrees
and camber front -1 to -1,5 degrees
camber rear -1,0 degrees
Front toe, -0? 03' per side

About lowering the car i bit more on the backside. This is a very good thing!! because the body will be completly level at heavy breaking!! therefor you will be less confronted with sudden shifting of the centre of grafity! this wil give a more restfull carbody whille entering corners at high speeds! car becomes more smoother!

If you need some more tips, just say so!

cheers mate

I experimented with a std pug 1.0l 106 with std skinny steelies and I found that although the ride got harsher and the noise increased, running all the tyres way above normal settings ( >50 psi at front and 40 on the rear) showed a marked improvement on handling. Simple as that. I think commonly used tyre settings are more to do with a soft ride etc than anything else.

Having reasonably high tyre pressures helps the tyre wall resistance to rolling over, increases ground pressure, improves sensitivity and steering response all of which will help stop understeer.
Select tyres with a lower profile & softer compounds specially formulated for performance and fit wider ones on wider rims if you can afford it.

Other things that really help- fit a performance suspension set-up, throw away antiroll bar, fit lowered front tie bar mounts, lower the car alround, reduce the weight of the car etc - the list goes on. This stops the body roll transferring weight during braking.

50 psi??? did you every read the text on the sidewall of the tyer? should sound like "never exeed tyer presure above 44 psi" and do you think that the presure stays the same while the tyers heat up? well if it works for you, its ok with me! As a mannager of a tyer company i see lots of tyer faliurs due to presure problems. every time it scares the s**t out of me.

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Originally Posted by CP

Having reasonably high tyre pressures.

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I'm not suggesting everyone driving around with pressures in the 50'slol - I increased the pressures incrementally to see as an experiment with minimal mileage involved

Also I drive a nova round race tracks on slicks so i'm well aware of the effects of heat