And a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE in my micra. When it was icy and snowy I had never driven a car with so LITTLE grip in all my life. Disconected the supercharger in an attempt to make it smoother. Not pleasent driving at all.
Ed
Nope :)
Ice actually has a very high coefficient of friction. The only reason it feels slippery, is because the top layer melts when you touch it - the water that's now inbetween your finger (or whatever) and the ice, is what makes you slip.
Get two pieces of ice, in a sub-zero environment, and move one across the other. Providing you don't move it fast enough that it generates enough heat (from friction) to melt the touching-surfaces, you'll find they don't slip at all.
Totally different. The skate "cuts" into the ice, simply because it has a very narrow contact patch. Your tyres will NEVER "cut" into the road, no matter how narrow the patch ! Road-surfacing is solid !
Again, because the snow has some "give" in it. Roads have no "give" at all. If you put a 1cm tyre on your car, it won't sink-into the road ! (Well, it might if the road is really crappy :)
Doesn't matter. As long as the force doesn't overcome the coefficient of friction, then the car won't skid. Doesn't matter how wide the tyre is - the coefficient of friction between the rubber and the road, remains the same. But the wider the tyre, the more of it there is to drag. More width = More grip.
Yes - we tell him that everytime he asks this question, but he doesn't seem to be doing it !
Wait a month, and he'll post something about his crappy brakes again. Repeat ad infinitum :)
I know why Saab and Volvo drivers use snow chains and studded tyres in Winter in Sweden.
Maybe now our weather is reaching much more extremes in summer and ewinter, maybe it is time that Winter tyres, and snow chain carrying be made compulsory.
I wasn't asking about *my* brakes, but about brakes and suspension in general. The plan for my brakes is vented discs, calipers from a scrappy and some Mintex 1144s. Then perhaps some bigger drums on the back.
if there was a thumbs up, it would go just above here :)
So get off your arse and do it then :D
Waste of time.
Wider doesn't equal larger contact patch. Lower pressure gives larger contact patch. If you let your own car tyres down you should be able to watch as the contact more tarmac.
Rubber compound, and tyre construction and profile have more to do with the grip a tyre will produce.
e.g. Softer rubber generally gives more grip. Lower profile tyres tend to distort less under load and give better grip etc
Wider tyres can be made out of a softer rubber compound and acheive the same wear rate as a narrower tyre made from a harder rubber (assuming tread pattern and rolling radius don't change) since they will have more rubber to wear off.
-- James
Yes it does (assuming all other factors remain static) :)
But the lower pressure will be detrimental to the affects of the larger contact patch.
Really don't think that we should be advocating people let their tyres down, not the safest thing in the world to do.
Read the Very long post above and believe it. this man has done his research.
Are you going to fund it?
ISTR Dervman saying the cars with vented discs have bigger drums. It might be the ABS models though. Anyway, everyone needs a strong handbrake :P.
Given any with all of its tyres inflated to 30 psi, the ground pressure the car can produce will be 30 psi (I'm assuming here that we aren't overinflating our tyres so that they stretch like baloons). Do the calculations yourself if you don't believe me. If you multiply the total contact area a car has with the road by its contact pressure (tyre pressure - I'm assuming all are the same here to simplify things a bit) you can calculate the weight of the vehicle. Note how the geometry of the tyres isn't a factor in this equation.
Now since the car has a fixed ground pressure (fixed by tyre pressure) and a fixed mass, it's contact area can not change without changing either the ground pressure or mass.. This is very basic physics.
Your tyres distort as you drive along, they don't remain completely cylindrical, they actaully have a flattened spot where they contact the road. This is more obvious on a fully laden truck than on a car, since truck tyres distort more due to their greater loading.
A narrower tyres tread has to distort more to produce the same footprint as a wider tyre.
-- James
Check out
-- James
Doki waffled on in a quite bewildering manner to produce...
It'll help slightly, but mainly it'll just help you go 20 mph quicker towards that "BIG OFF" you always promised yourself.
but in the real world where we like to think in simple terms, putting wider rims on your car means that you have more tyre in contact with the road, leading to better handling, in the dry anyway the downsides are crap wet weather performance and a tendency to tramline
the other real world thing would be that you wouldn't need as much pressure in the tyres to keep the car on the ground as you can spread the weight over a bigger area
but then people with maths and stuff come along and disprove everything, because you can't argue with the figures :(
that's only to match the euprated brakes at the front though :) not enough at the back would mean the car wouldn't stop very well when it was fully loaded it's all a question of having everything in proportion to the other
if you want to stop better, then invest in some stiffer springs for the front less wieght transfer = better braking ebcause the rears are stopping you as well for better off the line traction stiffen the rears less wieght transfer = better traction as the car doesn't squat as much on take off :) but if you want to stop better then get bigger, or at least vented discs
It's arse, that's what it is :)
Fuck it, I'll replace all the side windows with Polycarbonate and take out the brake servo / aircon / PAS too. And all the seats that aren't mine. Might get it to 80 brake a tonne then. Polishing a turd springs to mind :).
I'll save up for that Sierra (2l Pinto or XR4x4, insurance withstanding) to rag to the Nurburgring instead. At least the it's got right wheel drive. BTW, is there a cheap bastards way of getting a bit more power out of the
2.0 Pinto (perhaps I'll do some reading up on the laughing gas)?
I did that, mainly cos i found the pads on Ebay for £20 inc P&P :) They're EBC Green Stuff V4's, and very happy i am with them :) They don't really need heating up (usually braking from 20/30mph down to 5/0mph leaving my road is enough :) They don't fade nearly as much as the standard ones (although being that i have solid discs its still very easy to get fade) and they bite nicely. Plus, they were the same price as standard ones, and theres a little green bit showing behind my alloy :)
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