Drive has been putting up a bunch-o-cool vids about car engineering. This is the latest...
The expert interviewed here describes the way that radials need more camber... we don't got much camber on ACVWs. Especially those of us with oldschool K/L front ends with little or no negative camber.
That being the case (beyond cost), would our ACVWs better better handlers with crossply style tyres?
Would we be better off on crossply tyres?
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buildabiggerboxer
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Re: Would we be better off on crossply tyres?
VW,s are lethal on stock sized crossplys, European 1303/2 versions came with them as stock, they were still night and day safer than the standards with SA, but the grip of radials was missing, why so equipped only VW knew, penny pinching? Probably, a radial shod standard was at least drivable in the rain. BUT..... back, way way back, I ran a VW with 7" X 13" rear wheels and 6" x13" fronts equipped with very soft rubber crossply firestone's, but the car had all the suspension tricks I knew, low and wide and stiff as hell, it was good, very good, so they can work if the car is modified.petew wrote:Drive has been putting up a bunch-o-cool vids about car engineering. This is the latest...
That being the case (beyond cost), would our ACVWs better better handlers with crossply style tyres?
And There are cross ply racing tyres, I believe F1 are cross ply at this time, tho radials have been used by Pirelli, but they are designed for race suspension systems. I doubt you'd buy a cross ply today in stock VW sizes even if you wanted to, and we are spoils for radials that have no vices in any sizes you would like, so why change what's not broke?
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Marc
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Re: Would we be better off on crossply tyres?
I'll oversimplify here, but the short story is that radials tend to grip better up to their limit until they "give up" with less warning than bias-plys...making the bias-ply a bit more driver-friendly and arguably the better choice for a swingaxle chassis. If you're concerned about handling at the limit, you've abandoned swingaxle anyway making this a moot point.
For an all-out pavement racing slick, personally I prefer bias-ply construction...but unless you're spending all your time cornering at 10/10ths (i.e. nothing beyond spirited street driving) modern performance-type radials are probably the overall better choice, especially when you take into account that almost no "street" bias-plys are available with sticky rubber.
For an all-out pavement racing slick, personally I prefer bias-ply construction...but unless you're spending all your time cornering at 10/10ths (i.e. nothing beyond spirited street driving) modern performance-type radials are probably the overall better choice, especially when you take into account that almost no "street" bias-plys are available with sticky rubber.