Help with Tire Wear - 24hr race

Hello,

   There is a 24hr race coming up on the oval track here in Fort Wayne, IN. for street cars. The rules are that it needs to be a street car, no modifications, only get to remove lights, windows (except windshield), and chain doors shut, even the full interior has to stay in the car. Last year we ran a 94 Accord, that we are running again this year along with a 98 Civic. With no factory adjustments in the camber, and not being able to go aftermarket for parts we were wearing the outside shoulder on the RF, and the inside on the LF. Looking for suggestions to try and help the tires survive this year, not sure if anyone may have some ideas that could help.

Thanks

Slow with the brakes not the steering wheel.  As my Lemons drivers have improved their driving our tire wear has also improved.  We ran our Mustang with an alarming amount of toe out in our last race, we had the best tire wear ever.  Best as is even and we will get one more race out of the tires.

In reply to ksmith6 :

This may be cheating or not in the spirit of the rules.  But  I know of two teams that do it.  It involves finding a chassis frame shop and explaining your goal.  

Good shops can pull your chassis to the desired goal without leaving any visible marks that can’t be covered with a can of spray paint. 

Set the alignment to turn left like Indy cars and NASCAR do. 

In reply to ksmith6 :

Does no modifications mean no modifications or no aftermarket parts? The guys local to me will slot the shock tower, move the control arm, slot the knuckle, throw on some wheel spacers, and stagger wheel sizes. Since its all with factory parts, its still "stock". 

It's the grocery getter classic and the safety rules are sketchy AF. You can't add any roll bars, harnesses or cages.

Hankook Ventus RS4 and Falken Azenis 615K+ will probably be your best best for good grip with good life. The RS4 wear like iron. 

On the Honda front upper control arm, you can add washers/spacers on top of the mounting studs for more negative camber.  On the rear trailing arm, you could maybe have a 'damaged' camber arm?  If it somehow gets bent you'll have more negative camber.

PS...if you want positive camber, then you have to start 'stretching' pieces, which is difficult without a welder and grinder, but doable.

Add caster,  gives more neg. camber on the outside wheel an more positive on the inside wheel.

 the old loosen, push pull, tighten thing might help.

Thanks for the input.

Yeah, the safety rules do leave a bit to be desired for this race. 

They are saying no modifications, so slotting the towers would not work. They are also saying now that if it looks like it has been changed drastically they will make you change it. They are also talking about possibly running the opposite direction, not to be decided until the race. 

I will look into the washers, didn't think about that.

What about air pressure, would more or less help? 

I don't know how the suspension is set up, but sometimes you can get "crash bolts" that are designed to put the car back into alignment after, well, a crash. On an uncrashed car, they give alignment options :)

I agree, get with a local alignment shop and see what they can do.

Seems like your options are:

a. cheat just enough to not get caught

b. have a lot of tire wear on the outside edge

:D

Minimum 50 psi cold.  Hard as hell, so the tires slides before it rolls onto the edge of the tread 

Pump that bitch up until you are frightened to put any more on it.  

If the lower control arms bolt to a subframe, you may be able to loosen said subframe and push it to one side, then re-tighten for non symmetric camber.

Since you are wearing the outside on one side and the inside on the other, could you swap ide to side half way through?

If you are interested in cheating just a little bit, find some Accord springs for the left front and right rear.  Get the crossweight to a number that would give a late model crew cheif an aneurysm, and it will probably turn pretty good.

And yes, I did mean to put the heavier spring on the left front.  Unless they run the track backwards...

You could try some spring spacers, too.

I did get some spring spacers, thought that it would be good that I could put them in either side once they decide which way we will run.

I wondered about upping the pressures, thought it may stiffen up the sidewall a little and keep the tire from rolling over and killing the shoulder as bad. I was worried that the higher pressure may cause them to build too much heat. The max pressure on the tire says 44 psi, was thinking of getting close to that on the fronts. 

Did switch them around last year, at least on the ones we caught before they corded too bad. The one we started with on the RF and just started to cord we moved to the LR, it ended up being on the car the full 24 hours. 

Race is this Saturday, have to see if this helps at all. Last year we were running on well used tires, this year we have new tires to use, so hopefully that will help too. Thanks for all the ideas.

No rollcage in a oval track race? No dice.

What about an LT (truck) tire for the start and later change back to a good P (car) tire?

The LT tire will have thicker edges and you can drive over more crap on the track till people get done crashing.