Question about “The old sidewall chalk trick”

where exactly is the "edge" of where I need to be? Am I there? Should my chicken strips*be further down the sidewall? Further up? 

*chicken strips- a motorcycle term for the area of the tire that shows how courageous you are at leaning the bike over. 

Looks pretty good. Might try a couple psi less.

Your car is not a bike.

In reply to iceracer :

I was gonna say a bit more pressure.  Depending on what you're doing, how heavy the car is, how much camber it has, etc.   I prefer less shoulder wear than that.

Move your chalk over to the middle of the tread block instead of in the grooves.

On my road race Neon, that would be great.  Proper car, not perfect.

iceracer said:

Looks pretty good. Might try a couple psi less.

Your car is not a bike.

Yeah, I just couldn't resist the term. It's what I've always used as the term for the visible area of where rubber meets pavement. 

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

That was my bonehead self doing it in the dark. Next time use that shop light...

In reply to _ :

Next time if you do it in the dark, use glow in the dark chalk.

In reply to T.J. :

Hey that's a topic for another thread. They have glow in the dark plastidip. Imagine if someone dipped an entire car?!? I'm wondering if it would be considered a "light" and get me pulled over at night. 

Really depends on the car and the tire. For a strut car on street (not 200TW) tires that looks about right. I'd want to see what all the tires were doing to get a feel for the total package, but that's about right. 

On a side note, almost nobody uses chalk any more and I think that's mostly because tire sidewalls are easier to read than they were 15 years ago. There is nothing there that you need chalk to see. Where it becomes valuable is when you change pressures during an event and it's hard to tell previous runs wear from current runs wear. 

I'd call it good for a street car. 

There should be some little arrows or other marks along the edge of the sidewalls. As long as you're not wearing into them you should be good to go. 

CAinCA said:

There should be some little arrows or other marks along the edge of the sidewalls. As long as you're not wearing into them you should be good to go. 

Those arrows/michelin men/wingfoot etc are nothing more than a marker to show where the treadwear indicators (wear bars) are located. Think of them like the blue reflectors on the street that mark where fire hydrants are. They have nothing to do with how far down the shoulder of the tire the tread goes or how much usable grip the tire has.

Every tire is different so that's kind of a hard question to answer as a blanket statement. But having some experience with those tires and knowing they really really don't like being overheated and seeing that it already looks like you're starting to melt the outer edge of those tread blocks a little I'd say try a touch more pressure and see how the tires respond.

collinskl1 said:

CAinCA said:

There should be some little arrows or other marks along the edge of the sidewalls. As long as you're not wearing into them you should be good to go. 

Those arrows/michelin men/wingfoot etc are nothing more than a marker to show where the treadwear indicators (wear bars) are located. Think of them like the blue reflectors on the street that mark where fire hydrants are. They have nothing to do with how far down the shoulder of the tire the tread goes or how much usable grip the tire has.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?  I've been using them as wear indicators and calibrating my pressure accordingly for years. 

Their intent is not as rollover indicators. Though it usually happens that they're placed right at the edge of the tread blocks, which is about where you want rollover to stop. Generally speaking you should be using rollover amount as a guideline and then tuning to whatever makes the car feel the best and/or put up the best times.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Where it becomes valuable is when you change pressures during an event and it's hard to tell previous runs wear from current runs wear. 

That's actually why I'm doing it. The shoe polish has gone on after I went out once already. 29psi is what they sent me home with from the tire shop. I carved some high speed and low speed corners with it. Didn't like the sidewall flex, and that's where you are seeing the current "chicken strips". So, to get a truer sense of wear, I polished the sidewalls. 
fyi- while it is a street car it is also my sole autocrosser. Thus the R&D

ShinnyGroove said:

collinskl1 said:

CAinCA said:

There should be some little arrows or other marks along the edge of the sidewalls. As long as you're not wearing into them you should be good to go. 

Those arrows/michelin men/wingfoot etc are nothing more than a marker to show where the treadwear indicators (wear bars) are located. Think of them like the blue reflectors on the street that mark where fire hydrants are. They have nothing to do with how far down the shoulder of the tire the tread goes or how much usable grip the tire has.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?  I've been using them as wear indicators and calibrating my pressure accordingly for years. 

I was a tire development engineer for a major tire company in a previous life...

It's somewhat of a coincidence that they line up in the region we typically like to see "wear" to, but that is not their function.

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Guess I'm nobody because I still tire chalk.