OK Oak,

That makes some sense, I guess. I need to study a little more about the realtionship between increasing contact patch and understeer. I have never come across that relationship is the study I have done thus far. I just always assumed a narrower front tire would have more tendency to go straight when you turned the wheel (hence push) and wider front tire would grip better and be more responsive when the wheel is turned in. Maybe it's one of those counter-intuitive issues.

I can dial out some understeer with my anti-roll bars. I have the car set up now so as to minimize the possibility of high-speed oversteer and am increasing the front understeer in doing so. I have H&R front and rear and am middle position fromt and full soft in rear.

 

Al one thing is for sure, trying to cram the biggest tire you can on the car is counterproductive to what they were built for, the increase in sidewall also reflects an increase in sidewall flex and a feeling of instability.

I havent read much on what Oak says but there has to be some perameters on the wider wheel affecting understeer. I'll need to study that myself as well as I've never heard that before.

 

Dez,

Can you remember the tire size on the Cup Car (Farnbacher Loles) at the PCA event? I was thinking they had 285's on the front.

 

May have been, but remember that they were full slicks and had even stiffer sidewalls, and are also a little thicker for the length of the stints they run. you are running on NT-01's which are not even as stiff as the DOT slicks.

 

The new wheels will not be for NT-01's. It will be a DOT slick. Not completely sure which one as yet but have my eye on something a little different from what we usually see. I wonder how much stiffer the real slick sidewalls are compared to the DOT ones?