Quote:
Originally Posted by davelobi
I was running the tires on my old crx at 50 psi they even went to 55 for a couple tanks. Sidewall (max) pressure posted on the side of the tires was the common 44psi. Being new tires, I felt that they could safely handle that much pressure and they never had any problems. Higher pressure rolls much easier. Don't believe it, try peddling a bicycle with a flat tire. There is a word of caution however with highly inflated tires. With a much smaller patch on the ground they will not hold near as good braking or cornering. Hyper milers don't brake much anyways so it never turned out to be an issue for me.
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I think they will hold braking or a corner very close, certainly nothing to worry about. what they may do is actually "feel" more responsive because of the stiffer sidewall. This may lead you to believe you actually have more grip and push it closer to it's limit without getting the feel that you are about to lose it. Still the traction really hasn't changed.
In a racing application you want as large a contact patch as possible but that is because of repeated cornering and braking at the limit. This really builds heat in the contact patch so the bigger it is the more heat is distributed over a bigger aera. During normal driving encountering an emergency situation the tire has plenty of ability to absorb the heat until after the event is over. So a smaller contact patch has the same grip because more weight is pushing down on smaller contact patch.
Now this goes well with snow or deep puddles as well. Smaller contact patch means more weight per square inch and it cuts through the snow or water better. On hard packed snow and ice the lower pressure can be better because it forms around little irregularities better finding something to grab. The problem then is the tire will run hotter so when you stop you actually melt the ice a bit an make it slipperier. The colder ice stays the stickier it is. Then you run into the problem of summer tires being very cold the rubber gets too hard. Winter tires are designed to stay flexible when frozen.
I say air them up, winter and summer. Even autocrossers air up their factory tires, the races are too short to build much heat (at least most classes, there are some cars that can melt tires in sort order).