Here's an old autocrosser trick to show the where the contact patch ends. o Get a bottle of white shoe polish that comes in the squeeze bottle with the applicator. o Put a stripe starting about 1 inch up the outer sidewall down to what will definately be contact patch on the tread block. Do this at 4 or 5 points around each tire. Note that this may not come off easily, or completely. o Adjust your pressures to the test values. o Do about a 1 mile run with hard, or in a vanagon, sort of hard, cornering both directions. Speed is not critical, just side load. Tires should be at or near operating temp before starting this, though. o Check what got scrubbed off. o Renew the shoe polish. o Change pressures. o Lather, rinse, repeat. This will allow you to adjust for maximum patch for your tire on the surface of your choice. That may not be best grip, but should be very close. Note that this is temperature dependant, and surface dependent, but again will get you much closer to best grip than other methods costing the same as a small amount of shoe polish. tom
------ Tom Ring K0TAR, ex-WA2PHW EN34hx 85 Westphalia GL Albert 96 Jetta GL The Intimidator taring@taring.org "It is better to go into a turn slow, and come out fast, than to go into a turn fast and come out dead." Stirling Moss |
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