Left front tire: Running about 42 psi


The tire has seen about 3 days of track events and 4 autox's. All 3 other tires are fine. Also the one chunk is down to the cord and there about 3 more chunks in different parts of the tire.

Would this have been caused from overheating or something else?

 

see how the tire wear is very uneven with the tread depth, there is even a definate line that the chunks do not propagate past. possible alignment issues, although 42 psi is pretty damn high. could have been just overdriving as well. listen to your tires.

 

did you rotate the tires at all?
did you get highway insurance on them? if so take them back...YOU WANT A NEW ONE>.....

even if you didn't.....i'd take taht back and tell them you want a new one

 

sorry george...not following you around!!!

 

that's odd...did you break them in? That looks like pix i've seen of tires that were driven hard without any heat cycling. Might have been a fluke tho...maybe call falken of america or something and see if they'll send you a new one.

 

I have heard that Azenis' have an overheating problem, you should spray them down between laps to keep the temps down.

 

never had a problem with mine, they've done VIR full 2 days, Summit (once for 50 minutes straight), and Beaverun for 3 hours of track time in one day. They don't overheat if you break them in and run reasonable pressures (i like about 39 front hot)

 

hahaha I can see that... LAP 1, pit, spray. LAP 2, pit, spray..

hehe

 

dudes, look at the wear. this is not a general overheating issue. something is definately wrong in the way he was driving or car was setup.

and as for "breaking them in", its a friggin street tire folks, not a R compound. this wouldnt be a result of improper break in if it even were.


[Modified by Tyson, 11:54 PM 9/12/2002]

 

I am also dissapointed by my Falkens durability on the track. Mine all look like this one.
http://home.attbi.com/~vguzman3/tire02.JPG
I've been wondering if there's something wrong with my driving or if there's not enough camber.

 

youre also rolling your tires. also the surface youre running on must be pretty ruff like our regions golden gate fields autox track.

 

goodness, mine dont look like that! i dont have track experince with the falkens, so my opinion may be discounted- but after three autocrosses and two days of auto-x school (35 laps per day, sometimes hotlapping 5 in a row or more) i noticed minor strange wear on the shoulders, but nothing unexpected.
i did notice they heat up a lot like race tires- at one point, i started at 41, ended at 50. !!!!

 

Yup I never had a problem either. 2 track days, 20 autocrosses (4-8 runs per event), 30 laps around the Carlisle mini-course, and 8000miles daily driven. I'm down to 3mm of tread.

 

Yes, please verify whether that was the cold tire pressure or not.

 

I'll be on brandy new Azenis at Roebling next weekend.

 

Sorry, 42 psi was coming off the track, hot. As far as the track surface there was some coners with some patchs that were repaved and kinda rough. Also I somewhat pushed the car alittle too much a couple times that day.

 

Nah, you just setup a water pit... come in and roll through and head back out.

I've done four events on my set and the wear is very even. I'm certainly not pushing them as hard as I could, but I have to think that there's something seriously wrong with car setup, air pressures, or you're just overdriving them to end up with results like these.

Jeff - who will be on the same set at Roebling.

 

That is why I don't trust street tires in any kind of racing.

 

could you have clipped a curb or did a little off track excersion at some point coming into a corner or exiting???

 

By the way I ran 38 at the track hot. This is for a 2700lb car with 205/50x15" Azenis on 15x7" wheels and 350f/400r springs on Koni Yellows.

 

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=241859

 

First of all, we just have to accept that tires become consummables the INSTANT that you drive onto the race track. Even 8/10ths kind of activities will wear them out in short order. Autocrosses are NO comparison. Frankly, I am impressed that it gave you as much time as it did.

Second, a full-tread-depth tire is at a WAY higher risk of chunking than a shaved tire - for this reason they are usually false economy for running on the track. The mass of rubber (relative to its surface area) prevents heat transfer to the air and failure occurs, often where the tread rubber is bonded to the carcass rubber (where the cords are). They are different compounds and are, in essence, welded together - the heat had caused them to essentially come unwelded.

Third, Tyson is right about heat cycling - mostly - and that is not a tire that has generally been broiled. It is a tire that was used too hard on the primary loaded corner, with a combination of pressure and alignment that left it carrying most of the load on one edge. (The chunks are on the outside, right?)

Increased pressure changes the way the tire rolls but, with modern radial tires, not enough to keep the tread flat on the pavement when loaded in a corner. Front drive Showroom Stock drivers in the '80s-90s used to put as much as 60# of air in their tires, since they couldn't exceed stock alignment specs. More negative camber would help avoid what you see, if my assumption about the location of the wear is correct.

Chad's point about rotating is also right on but you are just spreading the damage out among four tires rather than one, and the source of the problem is still there. Get shaved meats for the track and think about some negative camber.

Kirk

(edit - I can't count)




[Modified by Knestis, 3:32 PM 9/13/2002]

 

The Falkens on my 2.5 RS have seen 2 days at Road Atlanta and 2 days at Road America in the last month, and they are holding up just fine. They've also been thru about 5 autocrosses.

At the track, I started out with 35psi front/35psi rear (cold), and for autocross, its up to about 40psi front/45 psi rear.

 

Canuckr, you are still running stock ITR wheels, correct? I have had some issues with my Azenis as well, although nothing near as bad as yours. I think much of the problem is running the tire on a wheel that is too narrow. This makes it a lot easier for the tire to roll over, creating much of the shoulder wear that you see. My friend has 215 Falkens (which is really the width that the 205/50/15 is) on 7" Volks and he gets perfectly even wear, despite the fact that he plows around the entire track.

As for the chunking, I think you are just overheating the tires. It is my experience that Falkens do not stand up to heat so well. From my experience hot days seem to make the problem a lot worse. Some people seem to think that your pressures are too high, but they seem fine to me, as I believe that running higher pressures is necessary on a narrow wheel.

I would try chalking the tires to see just how much the tire is rolling over and I would play with the pressure to try and decrease it. I'd also try not to push the car any further if you think that tires have overheated.

 

Wuss...

30 front 36 rear