Tire Wear Help
 

I haven been through 2 track days 1 being very recent, about 1 week ago. My spec is as follows,

225/45/17 RS3 V2
17x8 +42 Fast Hayaku
HP+ Front Pads
RBF600
Whiteline Camber bolts (Placed in top hole)

Alignment Spec

Front
Left Front Right Front
-1.3 Camber -1.4 camber
5.4 Caster 5.3 Caster
0.01 Toe -0.01 Toe

Rear
Left Rear Right Rear
-1.2 Camber -1.3 Camber
0.01 Toe 0.00 Toe

Quesiton is, What is causing my tire to be worn more gradually in the middle towards the inside? I dont daily drive on this setup as i switch couple days before track. My first track day i drove with 40 PSI hot all around. My second track day i tried 38 PSI hot all around but drove the car much harder the second time around as i was more comfortable. What can be casuing the middle to inside to wear much faster?

Thanks

40 PSI is probably a little high (my tires seem to be happier around 36 or 37) so you might be bulging them in the middle a little. If you post pictures of a tire then you might get some better answers.

The wear starts from the middle and gradually gets more towards the inside. Will try to get pictures up

Plz post pics of your tires


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry for the late post of pictures. If you guys need me to take more pictures of anything else Let me know. I have another track day coming in a week so and I would like toi resolve this issue before going there.

Thanks!


http://i62.tinypic.com/29ql4dd.jpg

You can see the wear more on the inside as the edges do not look as sharp as the outside tread pattern edge. It almost feel like It is not wearing out at all. But on the very outer edge it seems to be wearing.

http://i57.tinypic.com/hwan1c.jpg

I thought tire wear on the inside was perfectly normal.

Those look very normal to me.

I have had 6 sets of rs3s over the last 4 years. Thats pretty normal. Now as far as track day tire pressure unless you use a pyrometer you will never know for sure. For autocross my pressures are scary low. 28-30 up front 25 in the rear.



Or this... Oh man your tires are heat cycled out you should throw them away. However Ill give you 50 bucks to ship them to me. ha :)

I thought the tire should be atleast wearing evenly. It seems like just right outside the outer edge its not wearing at all. The edges are still very sharp compared to the inside edges of the tread.

Tire pressure is too high.

Do yourself a favor and get a pyrometer. I can teach you how to use it (or google).

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Longacre-Accutech-Economy-Pyrometer/dp/B000F1P4SW"]Amazon.com: Longacre Accutech Economy Pyrometer F&C: Automotive[/ame]

Outside high = need more camber
Inside high = need less camber
Center high = less pressure
Center low = more pressure

You want a 10F or less spread for simple hot lapping. Racing or time attack may warranty a different spread.

RS3 tend to wear on the outside, but you need mroe camber too.

Here’s some general info:

1. When I refer to taking a temperature reading, I mean jamming that probe into the tire. Seriously, stick it right into the tread block as far as the probe will go. Bury that thing. You want the carcass temperature. The surface temperature (what you get with an IR thermometer) changes too quickly and varies too much.
2. The reading is going to be all over the place for the first second or so as the probe goes in. Let it stabilize a little, but don’t wait until the numbers stop changing all together. Just wait a couple seconds. This is not a super-precise measurement and the longer you wait the more the tires cool and the heat equalizes. You have to keep doing this over and over again and write it down so you can find patterns and averages.
3. Measure at three points across the tread: about an inch or two in from each sidewall and right in the middle.
4. You need to be ready to take temperature readings as soon as possible after the car rolls off the course. The longer you wait, the fuzzier those readings get as the heat equalizes. Ideally, have somebody ready. Also, understand that means if you measure all four tires the last one is the least accurate. I recommend focusing on one end or one side (if one side gets more heavily loaded than the other on a given course…which always happens) at a time.

My recommendation is that you focus on the front of the car first. Over the first few runs your tires’ temperatures will not be stable. Check them, for sure, but you’re looking to get to a warmed up state where you’re done bleeding air out of the tires. I found I usually hit that after run 3. It depends on the weather, course and surface. Parkland is worthless for this sort of work because the surface is so slippery and the courses are so slow.

Once your pressures have stabilized, start checking front tire temperatures as soon as the car stops. I recommend focusing on the hotter side of the car. What you’re looking for first is the difference between the outside and inside edges of the tire. In the front, ideally you want the inside to be 10degF hotter than the outside. If the inside is hotter than that, you need less static camber. If it’s cooler than that, you need more. I doubt very much that you need more.

Once you have that figured out, you can adjust the front tire pressure. You want the temperature in between the inside and outside readings. Bang on the middle is perfect. Too high means you need a lower pressure and too low means you need to put more air in. Make small adjustments in pressure. You want something like this:

Inside: 120degF
Middle: 115degF
Outside: 110degF

The rear is much easier. You want an even temperature reading across the tread surface. If the inside and outside edges don’t match, you need to adjust camber. If the middle is hotter or cooler you need to adjust tire pressure.

Inside: 110degF
Middle: 110degF
Outside: 110degF

Once you know you’re using your tires properly, then you can start mucking with the rest of the car. You can make toe changes without worrying about tire temperatures, usually, though a lot of toe can affect it. Camber changes obviously need to be rechecked with a pyrometer. If you change spring rates or bars, you need to recheck.

An important thing to consider is what the tire’s optimal temperature range is. People seem to think all tires, no matter what type, need heat to work. They heard it on Days of Thunder or something, but this is not the case. When I used Avons, Bridgestones and Falkens, I kept them as cool as possible. They all worked well from cold up to a point, and then they fell off. People would laugh at my manic tire-cooling, but at the end of the day who had FTDI?

RS-3s do need heat to work properly, which was novel for a street tire at the time, but there is such a thing as too much. Those things worked well between 110 and 140 or so. After that, just like the ‘stones, they stopped working right. I didn’t cool RS-3s from the first run like I did the RE-11s.

If you know the range, you do not want to be at the top of it. You want to be heading out on course with enough heat to make them work and enough room to go up so they’re not done by the end of the run.

If you don’t know the range, you need to find out. I like to find a contact inside the tire manufacturer. It has worked for me twice out of the five brands of tires I’ve used, but it’s not always possible.