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Tire Pressure

Old Nov 15, 2009 | 05:11 PM
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Tire Pressure

I have been riding Dunlop Qualifiers... have been using stock pressures 36/42. I ride hard (for the street) and am not concerned with mileage/wear, just want best performance. Please let me know if you have been riding with different pressures and what may be good for sporting rides... thanks in advance.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 05:50 PM
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i ride on about 32-36 on the street, and 28 on the track.

basically the lower pressure (to a certain point) makes the tires flex more, giving you a bigger contact patch and make the tire heat quicker and get hotter. And at the same time causing quicker wear

Last edited by jay956; Nov 15, 2009 at 07:38 PM.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 06:41 PM
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?????

Riding with your pressure to low does NOT help cornering. It may increase the contact patch but it also makes it inconsistent. Not to mention it makes turning the bike physically harder to accomplish. It's a bad idea all around, I can't see any positive aspect for doing that.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 07:39 PM
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sure you can go too low, i would never go below 32 cold on the street. it also depend a lot on the type of tire.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 08:46 PM
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Originally Posted by drew_c14
?????

Riding with your pressure to low does NOT help cornering. It may increase the contact patch but it also makes it inconsistent. Not to mention it makes turning the bike physically harder to accomplish. It's a bad idea all around, I can't see any positive aspect for doing that.
It doesn't help cornering, it helps with traction.
Or are the MotoGP guys dumb too?

Last edited by Just_Nick; Nov 15, 2009 at 08:53 PM.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 09:40 PM
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I ride the twisties at least twice a week, usually Ortega Highway, and I've been running 36 front and 38 rear. I ride hard and fast, but I don't look anything close to that last photo.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 10:42 PM
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It depends on how much you weigh and how hot it is. There is no need to run OEM recommended pressure unless you hauling a passenger and/or additional weight. I weigh 175lbs. and ride the twisties at a good pace and usually leave the house with 30lbs cold in the summer. If it's cold weather, usually 34lbs cold. I am running Q2s now.

Of course you know that the pressure will increase a few lbs as soon as they warm up. Stop and check your pressure with the same gauge and you'll see how much pressure rises when warmed up.
Old Nov 15, 2009 | 10:52 PM
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I run 36/42 for my daily commuting, but air down to 32/36 for twisties.
Old Nov 16, 2009 | 05:42 AM
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Here's 32/32, and I'm not really that good.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lasdps/2...12414993025634
Old Nov 16, 2009 | 02:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Just_Nick
It doesn't help cornering, it helps with traction.
Or are the MotoGP guys dumb too?
i love how you can see the tire flex.

heres my tires at 28 cold
Old Nov 16, 2009 | 02:52 PM
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on the street I run 34psi front and rear. at the track, usually I run 29 rear 30 front. that was at the suggestion of the controlriders.
Old Nov 16, 2009 | 06:42 PM
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thanks guys, much appreciated.. i will start testing into dropping a few pounds and see if i can get them to hook up better. great pic just nick - and thanks jay956

craig.
Old Nov 16, 2009 | 07:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Just_Nick
It doesn't help cornering, it helps with traction.
Or are the MotoGP guys dumb too?
I don't know what the cold tire pressure would be for a MotoGP bike.

But I'd guess that after a few fast laps those tires are hotter than our VTR tires ever get, and the actual tire pressure is then quite a bit higher than it was cold.
Old Nov 16, 2009 | 08:14 PM
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you dont normally measure cold pressure on the track. i do because im too slow for the tires to raise more than 4-5 psi.
Old Nov 17, 2009 | 05:38 PM
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Tire pressures at the track is always much lower than on the street. Read the article below and it will explain virtually everything you need to know. The tire vendors at the track will point set you up with the right tire pressure. Each manufacturer will have a different recommended pressure. My last tires were BT002 and I ran with 29 psi front and back. They were the bullocks. Of course, 2 days at the track and they were almost done for. I'm sure by noon on the third day, they would have started getting squirly. Tire life will also depend on how hard you ride i.e. breaking and corner speed and also track temperature, surface conditions, etc. If I ride 2 days in a row at the track, I can generally get another 2500 km on the street since there is plenty of rubber in the center.
This is the second discussion today about track days and it's starting to give me a hard one.

http://www.sportrider.com/tech/tires...ure/index.html

Cheers
Old Nov 17, 2009 | 05:52 PM
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yeah man, the lower tire pressures on the track are to compensate for when they heat up. my bt002rs' aim for 32 hot, which turns out to be like 31/29 depending on how cold it is outside. normally i check pressures immediately after coming off a session on the track, and will do it until maybe the 1-2pm session.

id shoot for a little bit firmer than that for the street, mainly to firm up the steering. 34-36 max hot? ive done the high pressure thing to make sure wear is good, but crap, i hate how bad the traction is (on my old dunlop d220's or whatever at least). felt like running on wet concrete with jack purcells. running high pressures on my bt002rs' is pretty pointless. the carcass construction is pretty stiff already, and to stiffen them to that point is just wasting the available traction.

as far as what are good tires, i like the bt002rs (and have heard good things about the bt003rs) for "sport/performance" riding. its a shame wasting them as commuter tires, use bt016's or bt021's for that (the bt016's corner great tho, but they die out pretty quick if pushed hard). anyways, the 00xrs' are the street version of their dot race tires, different compound thats not susceptible to heat cycles and require less heat to get warmed up. these tires id say are great for newer track riders. if you ride hard on the street maybe pp2ct or bt016, my experience is with the bt016--dont see a real need for the bt00x tires, but they do feel great though, very solid carcass that improves feel tremendously.
Old Nov 17, 2009 | 06:10 PM
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Here's what 10psi in a set of Pirelli Supercorsa SC2s looks like:


Oops! They felt a mite squidgy, so I pumped them up to 30psi when I came back in...

And here's what 32 psi in a set of BT016s looks like:
Old Nov 17, 2009 | 07:37 PM
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yo galaxie, next time you hit the track with the 016s, try 28, its good stuff
Old Nov 22, 2009 | 06:58 AM
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So, I asked Dunlop.. the recommend 36/42... and by the way... 42 is the MAXIMUM on the outside of the tire! Then track reps say to be in the 20's.... seems like manufacture manipulation.. why not just tell consumers the RANGES for best use of the tire?
Old Nov 22, 2009 | 09:04 AM
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I find the whole thing confusing - tire comp's have recs, bike mfctr. have a rec. As far as I can tell the best pressure to run is that which gives the proper temperature across the tread at operating conditions. that is likely to be quite a range depending on ambient temp, road temp, weight load, riding style. On the track you can measure tread temp and that is how pressures are often set, plus feel, or some will measure change in pressure from cold to hot and use that to be sure they aren't too underinflated and getting to much heat build up. Most of us aren't going to do that so we ask. and we get huge range of recs because tires differ and the guys in the know are usually very fast guys which may have no relevance to us.
On most street conditions, going too soft doesn't help as much because you don't need the absolute best grip as track. and going softer just means more heat increase while you spend 90% of your time straight up: thus more wear and less stability (just having more tread on the pavement and more flex). If you are curious, set them cold at a pressure and recheck while hot - and experiment with different pressures. You don't want more pressure increase than 2-4 pounds I believe (but you'd have to check that, I may be recollecting wrong and that is for track).
Old Nov 22, 2009 | 08:00 PM
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Originally Posted by c-dub
So, I asked Dunlop.. the recommend 36/42... and by the way... 42 is the MAXIMUM on the outside of the tire! Then track reps say to be in the 20's.... seems like manufacture manipulation.. why not just tell consumers the RANGES for best use of the tire?
I believe you just have to use a little common sense and look at max weight ratings as opposed to what you're carrying, be willing to experiment a bit, realize that if you lower pressure as I posted above, you're gonna suffer more wear for a little traction. I make this choice because of the type of riding I do and the fact that I minimize straight line riding as much as possible.
Old Nov 22, 2009 | 09:52 PM
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I imagine they are still doing it this way, but when I was in the pits at Riverside Raceway for the Superbike races in the mid '80s, the Honda techs (5 Japanese guys in white jump suits and an American team manager) used a pyrometer to measure tire temperature as soon as Fred Merkel or Sam McDonald came off a practice lap. They would then adjust the pressure up slightly if the tire was too hot. The temp was climbing rapidly on this April morning.

We were selling Michelin tires to the privateers, and we were located right next to the Honda Team. When the privateers asked what pressure to run, we just said, "Honda is running.......".

When I asked him, the team manager gave me one of Flying Fred Merkel's practice tires (Michelin racing slick rear, the last year before the radials) to take back to my Auto classroom in Garden Grove. I left it there when I retired last January. It turned hard as a rock in the last 25 years.

Last edited by VTRsurfer; Nov 22, 2009 at 09:58 PM.
Old Nov 25, 2009 | 06:19 PM
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thanks for the help guys - after getting no tire recommendations from Dunlop, they sent me a book of stickers and some advertisements in the mail... let the experiments begin soon with pressures... my buddy has a tire temp gage too... i may now start obsessing on this...
Old Nov 25, 2009 | 07:02 PM
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it will be cool to see and hear about what you find
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