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RE: Hoosier tire wear survey

To: Bill Babcock <BillB@bnj.com>, "'Henry Frye'" <henry@henryfrye.com>,
Subject: RE: Hoosier tire wear survey
From: Bill Babcock <BillB@bnj.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:27:38 -0700
It would be useful to know the suspension setting for the cars that are
gobbling tires. Also, what do you call a "worn out" tire. Is it worn out
when you start seeing your lap times come down a bit, or are you driving
them to the cords?

I see a lot of cars on bias ply tires that are running a degree or more of
camber, like it's some kind of rule that camber=good. If you have added
camber by shortening the upper arm, then you have a lot of camber gain, so
even if you set it at zero degrees, as your suspension compresses you get
more.  

I'm running Peyote with zero to .5 degrees of camber, zero toe, and whatever
caster that a TR6 lower trunnion gives (I think it's 3 degrees). I have
about 2 degrees of camber gain at full suspension travel (compression). The
Ackerman point is about five inches before the rear axle. 

Using Hoosier vintage TDs 5.50 X 15 front and rear, about 22 pounds in the
front, 24 in the rear, nitrogen.

My tires give even temps across the face and show no sliding marks--the wear
is even across the tire. I gain about 1 second with new tires after one heat
cycle, lose that back after ten or so cycles. After ten cycles there is no
further degradation of lap times. I run tires to 30 or 40 heat cycles or
more. So far this season I've bought one set of Hoosiers to replace the ones
I flat spotted when I lost my steering. And I bought one set of Dunlops to
run Monterey. 

I'm going to be trying the DOT Hoosiers at the CRC. I'll let you know what I
think of them. They are radials, so I'll need to play with camber. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Bill Babcock
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 8:09 AM
To: 'Henry Frye'; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Hoosier tire wear survey

Never, ever, EVER start figuring out what you're spending to race. That's
how I got Peyote--Baxter figured out what it was costing him per lap to
race, and sold all his cars.  

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Henry Frye
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 6:09 AM
To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Hoosier tire wear survey

At 08:35 AM 08/24/2005 -0400, Jeff Snook wrote:

>I will continue tracking heat cycles on my new set of Hoosiers when I 
>get them, but Bob Woodman told me 12 to 15 and it sounds like he is 
>right on the money.

When you put it that way, Jeff, you are saying it is costing us about $66
per session for tires!  I have not bothered counting heat cycles, that would
probably really depress me.

I am trying the less camber approach to even out the wear on the fronts,
hopefully that will get me past the 2 to 3 weekends I have been getting.

The addition to the house project is sort of back on track, so I'm going to
join Russ Moore and Donny Sopp at Mosport this weekend for a VARAC/CASC
weekend. My tires have the better part of the VDCA April event at VIR and
the Mitty (including test day) on them. We'll see how they hold up.

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