Track Tac

Setting stagger in Burris 33a tires

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Brinkljg01

New member
I am new to kart racing and I keep hearing people talk abou staggering the tires and that it will help cornering. I know I have lots to learn with that being said can someone tell me what staggering is what it does for you and how to set it up. I race in medium clone 350 at a high banked oval clay track.
 
Brinkljg01 said:
I am new to kart racing and I keep hearing people talk abou staggering the tires and that it will help cornering. I know I have lots to learn with that being said can someone tell me what staggering is what it does for you and how to set it up. I race in medium clone 350 at a high banked oval clay track.
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Can you see, in your head, when going around the corner, the inside tire travels a shorter path than the outside tire. The point of stagger is to make both tires revolve the same number of turns going around the corner. If the staggers not right, the tire with the least amount of traction will be sliding, or turning too fast, which means less traction in either case. A rolling tire has more traction than a sliding tire. Because the inside path is shorter, the inside tire has to be smaller in circumference to accomplish that.

The difference in circumference can be calculated.

On a banked track, the inside and outside paths are different from a flat track, thus the stagger has to be adjusted for a banked track.

Calculating stagger is not hard, just a little difficult. Calculating stagger for a banked track is even more difficult. I wrote a spreadsheet that does both.

You enter the turn radius, the tread width center to center and the banking of the track and it tells you what your inside tire needs to be in circumference compared to the circumference of your outside tire.

Email me privately and I'll send it to you, free. There's a whole bunch of other neat spreadsheets for karting there too.
 
Thank you very much. I have asked guys at the track how to do it and they tell me they don't know them I see them measuring the radius of there tires.
 
"how to set it up"

To make stagger you put the bigger tire on the outside. You do that front and back.

If the tires are the same size and kind then you can make one bigger by putting it on a narrower rim. Squeezing the center of the tire together will make it taller or bigger.

The opposite goes if you put the tire on a wider rim. spreading the center of the tire apart with a wider rim will make it wider and shorter.

To find your stagger you measure around the big tire and subtract the measurement about the small tire from it. Rough guess is to have an inch of stagger difference in the front and and 1.25 in the back. But those numbers are by no means a guide or a starting point. Maybe close that's all.

Your kart is designed to have stagger in it in the front and in the back. The stagger up front helps the chassis work as designed and the stagger in the back helps you turn.

You can also search and read on here about how to grow and shrink tires. That means if you have two identical tires and two identical rims to start with, you can grow one tire bigger and shrink the other smaller.

Also air pressure makes tires bigger and smaller. If you have 7 pounds of air in your right rear tire and 6 in the left, even if they were exactly the same to start with one pound of air more will make the right rear tire bigger.

How much stagger do you need? You need enough or the right amount to match up with everything else that needs done.

ps... Al will send you good information but a lot of it will be hard to understand. For now measure around the outside of your tires, try doing different things to them and measuring to see what difference if any you get.

It's common to run the exact same kind and size tire on the right side front and back. You then put different tires on the inside front and back to get your stagger. Often if not usually you put a different kind of tire which is naturally smaller on the inside and work from there. To fine tune stagger racers will use air pressure or have like tires except for diameter ready to go if they need to adjust stagger. But your not there yet, ya just need some. ... :)

ps... you'll need a stagger tape to measure around your tires. They sell narrow blade steel tape measures made to do the job. Or you can use a dress makers cloth tape which will wrap around the tires.
 
I'll agree with XXX#40 about Al's chart.

Aside from being an excellent calculating person and coming up with charts which are all 100% accurate per the numbers crunched, only some of his charts are useful and good. Al doesn't know how stagger works from his butt to a hole in the ground. Many of his charts though do serve a useful purpose for many racers. And some of them I think as your knowledge increases will become very useful to you.
 
XXX#40 said:
Als stagger chart will be wrong for a high banked bullrings
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I'll second that, Don't have to see it we know who entered the data !
Original poster don't get frustrated stagger is not that hard as it's been explained, It's actually pretty simple the fastest karts for oval racing posting the quickest lap times will be the ones that rotate the best thus creating optimal corner speed, there is where stagger comes into play especially rear stagger, you simply set your tires to pressure you wish to race measure around the outside of all the tires, you need the right side tires to measure bigger than the left side, front stagger for now until you learn more can be set at 1 3/8 " and leave it alone, Rear stagger is track depended based on how tight the turns are do not worry about banking or flat for now until you gain experience knowing when to tweak, for now 1/10 th mile track or smaller set rear at 1 1/2 ", 1/8 th mile set rear at 1 1/4 ", 1/6th mile set rear at 1 1/8 ", 1/5 th mile track set rear at 1", 1/4 mile or bigger set rear at 3/4 ".
Feel free to ask more questions.

Good Luck !!
 
paulkish said:
I'll agree with XXX#40 about Al's chart.

Al doesn't know how stagger works from his butt to a hole in the ground.
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I find it hard to believe that you can get away with saying things like this.

I would challenge you to just try it and see what happens. Simple. It's either right or wrong.

I stated my reasons for changes in stagger on high banked turn ovals. People tell me I'm wrong, but nobody to date has given us any data to show why I'm wrong. I wonder why that is. It's the same thing time and time again, he's wrong, don't ask me why, he just is.
 
alvin l nunley said:
I find it hard to believe that you can get away with saying things like this.

I would challenge you to just try it and see what happens. Simple. It's either right or wrong.

I stated my reasons for changes in stagger on high banked turn ovals. People tell me I'm wrong, but nobody to date has given us any data to show why I'm wrong. I wonder why that is. It's the same thing time and time again, he's wrong, don't ask me why, he just is.
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No Al you have been given PLENTY of data by guys who really race high banked bull rings, but in your mind your right and we are wrong, but we have wins to prove your theory wrong
 
XXX#40 said:
No Al you have been given PLENTY of data by guys who really race high banked bull rings, but in your mind your right and we are wrong, but we have wins to prove your theory wrong
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"I've won races"? That's your data? That proves me wrong? I find it amazing that I'm even having this conversation. Still, regardless of your ranting and raving, there may be people reading these responses that understand.
 
:) I believe he meant that he'd won races recently, Al.

While many things can be converted to mathematics, many of the finer details cannot, especially in dirt racing.
Everything does not boil down to data and theories, or as the old saying goes:
"Theoretically, it's possible, application is a b****."
 
Al, what do you do when your chart gives you say 1" rear stagger for a certain track, yet you'll have half the karts using more or less stagger than your chart says? Does that mean the guys using different stagger are wrong and wont be fast? I have seen races where different winners in different classes all had different rear staggers, because each driver sets up their kart to where it works best for them...not what everyone else is doing or what a chart says to do. Most of us can look at tracks now and get within 1/4" of the correct stagger and within a tooth or 2 of the correct gearing. Can your chart do that?
 
W5R said:
Al, what do you do when your chart gives you say 1" rear stagger for a certain track,
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If you had ever seen my stagger spreadsheet, you would know that it says the numbers are "theoretical" starting points. I wonder, who would listen to a book critic that never reads books. lol

Beats me how somebody can "critique" something without ever having seen it?

I can understand, with your long experience, how you can look at the track and decide the proper stagger. I have this idea that a first or second year karter doesn't have that ability. With my spreadsheet, he can get close.

Even with your ability to read a track, I'm sure you experiment.
 
Bob Evans said:
:)
"Theoretically, it's possible, application is a b****."
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In my spreadsheet, on the page for stagger, it quite plainly says "theoretical" starting point. That theoretical starting point only deals with the turn radius. There are a lot of other factors that I'm aware of that go into deciding on the best stagger. Take for instance a track often referred to as a paperclip. You want to get around the corners as fast as you can, but setting the stagger to achieve that might hurt your speed down the straight. If someone passes you down the straight, there's not much you can do, so you have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a given amount of stagger. Turn speed, straightaway speed, they both go into determining the best stagger.
It's called tuning, and tuning is tough! (Al Nunley)

P. S. I can't think of another page in my "nine sheets" Excel spreadsheet (actually there's about 24 pages) that has anything "theoretical" in it. It's all just calculations and hard numbers. Take corner weights for instance, there's nothing theoretical in that. Now the actual "corner weights" for the best performance might be theoretical, but not the weights themselves.
 
Bob Evans said:
:) I believe he meant that he'd won races recently, Al.

While many things can be converted to mathematics, many of the finer details cannot, especially in dirt racing.
Everything does not boil down to data and theories, or as the old saying goes:
"Theoretically, it's possible, application is a b****."
Click to expand...

As you say possible in theory. Even if we know how to formulate the equation, garbage in becomes the problem. Some inputs are interrelated and constantly changing. That is when driver and tuner's intuition take over, for better of worse.
 
racing promotor said:
I'll second that, Don't have to see it we know who entered the data !
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1/10 th mile track or smaller set rear at 1 1/2 ",
1/8 th mile set rear at 1 1/4 ",
1/6th mile set rear at 1 1/8 ",
1/5 th mile track set rear at 1",
1/4 mile or bigger set rear at 3/4 ".

Could be a good place to start, I wouldn't know, but I do know that different lengths of tracks can have different turn radius's, even tracks of the same length can have different turn radius's, and it's the radius of the turn that I use to calculate the theoretical stagger.
 
Are those numbers a general consensus you've read on here? They seem reasonable for a theoretical starting polnt. If you did, good job from experience.
 
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