Adjusting tyre pressures

This is very timely and valuable information for me. I have been wondering about tire pressures and doing some experimenting by tweaking pressures, running laps and checking results in the garage using the monitor that you showed. I pretty much drive GT3 cars exclusively in R3E along with an occasional GT4. Is there an optimum operating temp for the tires in those classes like in ACC? Also I have a good range of temperatures across each tire but I am having trouble getting the individual tires to reflect the same approximate temperatures all around the car. Is getting a uniform temperature on all the tires a tire pressure issue or is it more an issue with other chassis adjustments such as toe, dampers, etc. For example, I was running the Callaway Corvetter at Mid-Ohio chicane in practice sessions last night. The LF tire was showing a range of 72-80F, the RF tire was at 74-68F and both of the rear tires were running from 58-66 degrees across the tires. This was after 16-20 laps stints. I wanted more heat in the rear tires and to try to match the fronts better. Is this a function of pressure or chassis set-up? The car handles very well and I am within .7 seconds of the fastest Leaderboard time with my race set-up but I want to get faster. I do use asymmetrical settings on the car in regards to tires pressure and camber. Any insight or knowledge imparted would be appreciated. I understand that it makes a difference whether a track is predominantly left or right turns and that will determine which tires work the hardest but is there a way to use air pressures to balance the temperatures?

 

Thanks for the info Alex.
In the telemetry app I built, Im doing a simple calc for the optimal tire middle temp, so in a glimpse look i can tell if each tire is over/under inflated.
Middle - ((Inner + Outer)/2) = ideally should be zero. Plus Value means overInflated, Minus means underInflated.
I believe adding this value to the TyreInfo section on the garage menu screen could be helpful

 

I once "broke" my FWD car by adjusting the rear pressure too much, I guess the tyres ballooned too much and the contact patch became tiny. Problem was I only realised it after the race started, this really impressed me but also got me thinking: wouldn't it be nice to be able to adjust your tyre pressure in the pit menu for your next set of tyres? Or this feature won't ever be used, really? Especially since in this game track conditions never change during a race...

 

Thanks for the update Alex. Much appreciated.

 

Yes, I didnt thought about it but actually, i just experienced with it and concluded that middle tire +1degC means around 1kPa to be decrease.

 

Nicely clearly written and explained.

 

When is the tyre data in the garage screen taken, last time across the start finish, when you leave the track and return to the garage or somewhere else?

 

In the exact moment you click "return to garage".

 

Pretty sure its the moment just before you teleport back to the pits

 

no problem to understand optimal pressures, is there any recommended ratio between inner and outer temps? IE for front tyres aim for a difference of 7 or 10 degrees and so on

 

It rather depends on the car class. Aim for a delta of 5 degrees on the Scirocco, GR4, GR5, Fr-J, GRC for example. WTCR, WTCC up to 15 degrees and most of the rest and GT3, GT4, GTE around 10.

Oli

 

Thanks

 

Interesting. Why it's like that? I would think with driven front wheels you want the best grip on them and therefore not as big of a temp difference. What makes FWD benefit from such settings?

 

The question maybe is: under which circumstances you want that maximum grip with front driven wheels? straight line acceleration perhaps wouldn't be the strength with such massive camber settings. I guess it's down to how camber changes during cornering. So having the outside tyre contact patch flat on the ground and maximised during hard cornering while applying the throttle at the same time, might outweigh those straight line acceleration/braking flaws. Overall this might be leading to that rather huge Delta of 15 degrees throughout a lap (because you're not just cornering, but also spend quite some time braking and accelerating only using the inner part of the content patch)
But that's just a guess... That's definitely a topic I, too would appreciate if an expert could shed some light... @Alex Hodgkinson

Oli

 

Are there any other classes where the deltas are greater than 10 degrees front and 7 degrees rear, which I believe is the Gt operating window?

 

Thanks, i appreciate that i have a lot to learn that helped and made sense i need all the help i can get!!

 

Can someone explain as to how I know which tyre is depicted in the tyre temp figure? Just ran a championship with the NSU and the front and rear tyres in the tyre temp table sometimes switch sides (front is left and rear is right and vise versa).

So: what is the front left tyre, what is the front right tyre, what is the rear left tyre and what is the rear right tyre?

Thanks