Is it really necessary to do a burnout with just radial tires?
I have Goodyear Eagle F1 GS, and I wonder if I need to air down or do a burnout. I run them now at 34 PSI and I do a little burnout.

 

Run 'em at like 28psi or so and do a quick spin only to clean off the dirt.. aside from that, no burnout necessary.

 

Yea just real quick get the dirt off of em

 

Burnouts with slicks is to heat them up and make them sticky. Street tires are designed not to heat up so trying to do a burnout just wears off the rubber and makes the tire slippery.

Avoid the waterbox. The water will collect in the grooves and drip down on the track in front of the tires. If possible, drive around to the inside of the water box since they broom all the dirt and rubber to the outside.

A quick dry hop is all that's needed to clean off the tires. As for air pressure, radial tires don't like low pressure. The sidewalls are very stiff and when the pressure is low it will force the center of the tire up and off the pavement. 28 psi is the lowest you want to try but most radials work best in the 32-35 psi range since that will give them the best footprint on the pavement.

 

I'm with the last guy, many people think lowering the presure will help when in fact it will make the tires deflect and bow in a convex type form. Lower your pressure way down then do a burnout, notice the footprint, then raise it back to normal do another burnout and you'll see its much better and will be a good print compared to the first

 

I'd suggest bumping up the tire pressure in the front tires to minimize rolling resistance.

 

After 100+ track passes on my stock 16 inch gsc`s I had a chance to test all the different air pressures 32-16 and atleast on my car I find 24 psi seems to work the best. I would do a burnout for about 3 sec high rpm then ride it out. Ofcourse the removal of my front swaybar really helped.

Jeremy

 

Well call me stupid, but I thought that was for visual entertainment. hmmm.

 

Nope, it is necessary to heat up race tires to get maximum traction.

Rich Krause

 

You've been to Sac Raceway and seen my burnouts ...

 

Everything you said in theory is correct ... but here's how it plays in practice.

The burnout ... yes a quick spin is all you need to clean off the tires. But if enough people on slicks have left enough rubber, then a more prolonged burnout on street tire will pick up some of that rubber and actually get the tires tacky ... the people that I've seen with the best 60's on street tires, smoke 'em pretty good.

Tire pressure ... your approach is correct for the optimum tire patch. But tire patch isn't your real enemy on street tires. Your real enemy is the bounce from the tires. Your right the sidewalls on street tires don't flex ... but it is not the lateral flex that is the issue, it is the foward flex of slick as it wrinkles forward and lays more patch on the ground that makes a slick effective.

What happens on a street tire is the lack of flex turns the tire into a secondary spring. Bouncing the tire down and then back up. The only way to mitigate this is to lower the pressure and take the bounce out ... the optimum trade off point for the bounce is somewhere less than the optimum pressure is for contact patch .. low 20s or even high teens can be a more effective pressure for street tires.

Water box ... yep stay out if ... no good ever comes of taking street tires into the water ...

 

Just experiment to find what works for you, simple as that. Asking for a fixed answer is dumb because things work different in every car with different tires and drivers. I ran 1.8s on dunlop SP500s down at about 26psi after a decent burnout in a 92 Z28 convertible

 

i must say that after i started burning the GSC's i could launch much better and i cut about 2/10 off my ET. I smoked em good for about 6-8 seconds and i back into the water box so i dont drag the front wheels through.