At the track this past Friday, I did my usual thing. Fronts at 32 psi, rears at 36 psi. Pull up to the line, and it's so cold the tires just spin throughout first. Result: a crappy 2.36 60' time.

A friend of mine tells me to drop the pressures to 25 psi. I have my doubts as visions of tire deformation dance in my head, but decide to follow his advice since he's much more experienced than I am. Do a minor burnout to clear the tires, and launch to the tune of a 2.24 60' time.

Dropping tire pressure helps, and I never would have expected dropping it so low to help so much!

Thoughts/experiences anyone?

 

I usually bring mine down to 25 psi as well. No burnout though, just spin the tires through the waterbox to clean em off.

 

I run 35lbs on back and 20lbs on front. Seems to grab well in my little ole POS Prelude on the strip. I am building a Junk Yard bargain drag car. I get 0-60 ft mark at about 2.1 secs. Not award winning but works for me. I race in a Dial in event, and consistancy is the key to bringing home the trophies. I raced one time this season and broght home Second place.

The only problems you will run into with 20 lbs on the fronts and 35 lbs on the back, is that you must make sure you re inflate your tires before leaving the track. The front will tend to be stiff feeling and doing hard turns are not advised. Rear is no problem but is not super safe for street driving. Although check your Max PSI on the back tires and inflate to just under that point.

If you are running for Dial Ins do what is more comfortable, but for heads up type racing I would test out the above pressures.

 

i'll lower drag radials to around 15 psi. 40-45 psi in the rear.

 

I lower the fronts to about 20 psi and then fill them back up at the nearest gas station to the track.

 

I've always had the best luck around 20psi. I always hear this mumbo jumbo about deformation/etc from people and how 20psi is so bad for street tires and there's no way it'll hook up better but I've been through 4 diff sets of tires and they all worked better around 20.

Now cornering and braking... is scary at 20. Yuck.

 

You mean you dont like the feeling of the tires flopin round when you get to the end of the strip to the turn around. Or dodgin those IDIOTS that allways like to walk on the pit lanes. I swear if one more idiot walks in front of my car while on the pit road Im goin to nail his ***. They most of the time cant hear us comin.

 

i went as low as 13psi in my nittor 555r drag radials and experienced no tire deformation.

i am currently using the BFGs and they are hooking good at 17psi...40psi in the rears on shitty michellens....

 

23 psi is what Ive run...

 

good advice!

 

Drag radials, I usually run 14-16psi. Street tires, I usually run 18-22psi. This will vary according to the weight of the car. A 2000lb car can use a lower pressure than say a 3600lb car without tread deformation at the line.

 

Yeah there are so many factors that affect how low you can go with your pressures. Due to my cars low weight, I run about 15 psi in the fronts and get 2.10 60's. That is with Yokohama A032's in 205/60 x 13 street tyres. Lighter and wider front rims will hopefully get that to 2.0's.