Quote:
Originally Posted by royanddoreen
Wondering if Capriracer or any of you have heard of a tool where you could drive your tire onto a pad which could measure contact pressures across the thread so we could get a even footprint. this should give us max traction.
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I have not heard of such a thing. What footprint pressure machines I have seen (and I did a quick web search just now) have been for tire research and probably outside the cost range for even a tire shop.
But a good tire designer should be trying to get a footprint that has good properties over a wide range of pressures/load - like this one:
Notice how the shoulders of the tire are in contact with the road surface - even at the extremes.
Further, tire designers would try to get the footprint optimal at the placard load/pressure. So if getting max grip is the goal, a good starting point would be the placard pressure.
HOWEVER, vehicle suspensions change the orientation of the tire under cornering (and braking and accelerating). Both camber and toe can change as the suspension moves up and down and the steering wheel is turned. So this whole issue of finding the optimal pressure is going to depend on the particular vehicle involved - and most of us don't have computer models to help us sort out what the suspension is doing.