How to set hot and cold tire pressures

This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 7 months ago by Cory-Milne.

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- March 8, 2015 at 10:58 am #43586
  
  Brock Weiss
  Participant
  
  can someone explain how you adjust between tour cold and hot tire pressures. I get the idea but I am not sure how to do it.
  
  Lets say say I put in 10 lbs of cold tire pressure and then go and run the race. When I come in it is then at 13 lbs of hot tire pressure. My question is what do I do now? I know that you typically want a 2lbs gain in tires but my questions is
  
  1. when do I set the tire pressure after I have taken the hot readings
  
  2.what would I want to drop them to?
  
  would I set the pressures immediately after the race or do I let them cool down for awhile and then set them. That is where I get lost is after you have taken your hot pressure readings when do you adjust to the new pressures. Right away or do you wait and do it?
  
  So if I put in 10psi cold and they go up to 13 psi hot and I want to adjust for a 2lb gain, do I put in 12 psi right away or wait when the tire cools down?
  
  If if someone could tell me step by step process and when you do your adjustments that would helps a lot. I just don’t know when your make your adjustments after you take your got readings and want to adjust then to your new pressures and what do you adjust them to
  
  hopefully I am making sense because this cold and hot thing is confusing the hell out of me for some reason
- March 8, 2015 at 2:35 pm #43600
  
  Matt Dixon
  Participant
  
  The minute you get off track level the tires off. You will never have the same pressures at first on all 4 corners. Certain tires get worked more then others. So using your example level them all down to 12.5 hot. When they cool they may have 4 different pressures, that’s ok. Now next session they will all heat up to 12.5 (barring any crazy weather changes) . Now you can adjust the pressures to suit the drivers/karts needs. Do that cold by either adding or bleeding down all 4 tires by the desired amount. Hope that made sense. That should get you rolling…
- March 8, 2015 at 6:42 pm #43612
  
  Anonymous
  Inactive
  
  Just set the pressures cold. Keep track of your pressure gains on all four corners, but don’t set pressures hot because you don’t know how much they will change when the tires cool back down between sessions. Check pressure on the grid before you go out and set them where you want them to be.
  
  MG Yellows are usually around 9-11 psi cold.
- March 9, 2015 at 9:55 am #43668
  
  Greg Lindahl
  Participant
  
  +1 Matt
  
  What matters is that the tires are the same when at full running temperature.
- March 11, 2015 at 6:20 pm #43877
  
  Cory-Milne
  Participant
  
  my step by step process to airpressure is such
  
  1. tire testing!!!!
  
  2. find out how much each tire grows when you do a 10lap and 20lap test session or if your local track does a different format do however many laps they do for heats and main event ( note best way to do this is set all tire to the same tire pressure) also have someone else take tire pressures IMMEDIATELY after you get off the track as soon as you stop using the tires in a “race” setting they start to cool off and you get an inaccurate reading.
  
  3. after you have established how much each tire grows try to get all four tires to grow to the same pressure( remember to continue to do your local racing format)
  
  4. once you get your tires to all come in at the same pressure start playing with tire pressure. You want your fastest laps to be 1-2 laps before the end of the race. (remember when in doubt always go lower, you want to go lower because if the tires are over pressured the kart tends to go flat and start pushing and life happens)
  
  5. more tire testing those who know their tires the best win races
  
  6. win races
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