Stagger and Left Rear on Asphalt

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Fab54

New member
Question about 1/10 mile asphalt oval clone engine running yellow vegas. Why not run a harder tire on the left rear like a vega red to allow it to slip easier. The right rear is doing most of the work anyway. Seems like a harder left rear in combination with stagger would be advantageous. ??
 
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The only tire rule is all four tires must be from the same manufacturer. I just noticed a typo in my original post. I meant the right rear does all the work. The left rear just gets in the way of things.
 
ABR #69 said:
Try it, you just might like it! You have a vega tire rule?
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ditto, try everything to get more speed always try things to know for yourself what it does.
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But when I read someone asking about wanting to make any tire slip more, it immediately makes me ask what on track problem are you trying to solve making it slip more. I also read your adding into your thoughts, making the LR slip more and at the same time putting more stagger onto it. That gives me two things to relate to and maybe a better insight into your thoughts. But I'm still wanting to know if your trying to solve or make better an on track problem. With the two things you put in the pot, how I look at things and since I like to write I think I can throw something at it.

There is no time when the LR is doing most of the work anyway. The LR has to do what the LR needs to get done, at the right time going around the track. Your also thinking about adding more stagger, along with putting I assume a harder tires on the LR to move the LR more towards being able to slip or grip less. First off lets just look at what putting more stagger on the LR will do. I'll also assume your thoughts are to put a smaller LR tire on, rather then putting on a bigger RR tire to increase stagger.

Just looking at what the increase in stagger will do is it will lower the LR corner of the chassis. If you put a smaller tire on the LR the LR end of the chassis will drop down. I'm not into scaling and don't care how it will change your numbers. Dropping down the LR corner will slightly drop down weight located at the LR corner. Simply put if you drop weight down in a hole farther and in this case the hole is a line between where the LF spindle attaches and the RR tire contact patch, it's going to take more effort to get what ever weight you had in the hole up and working for you. Also the lower weight is going to be slightly projected more towards working for you in an outward direction and a little less aimed towards the RR tire in the turn. That means dropping the LR corner down, made it harder to get weight off the LR, yet what weight is at the LR is now a little less usable at the RR. Weather or not the two things cancel themselves out and over all performance remains the same, just depends on everything else. But what I said will happen. ... hummm... this is a new thought for me and makes all this writing and the effort it takes worth it to me. My next thoughts were an automatic thing for me to bring your stagger increase into the picture and I was going to describe how the stagger entered into it. Basically I was going to say the increase in stagger will increase the difference in surface speed between the surface of the left and right rear tires. And how the increase by slowing down the surface speed of the LR tire, can make it a better anchor or rudder for the RR to roll around going in while slowing down, >depending on your ability to apply weight to the LR. ... But I never automatically saw the lowering of the LR corner as automatically adding weight to the LR tire. ... It does. So, I guess I'll have to add to my thought process that if you increase stagger via putting a smaller LR tire on, in addition to getting a slower surface speed at the LR, you also have some more weight to make the slower surface speed work for you.

... all just maybe yada yada yada for you, but kind of meaningful for me.

I have to stop and think about what I just wrote. The first reason is I have to go get a cup of coffee and that in itself will make me stop. The other is I really wonder if you are trying to fix an on track problem at entry, mid corner or exit with what you propose.

Netting out what I think about what you first proposed is if you just put a harder tire on without increasing stagger... no, too many other things involved to answer. Try it and see what happens.

I'd say if your thinking is put more stagger on, then also go with the harder tire.

Or, if your thinking is put a harder tire on, then ... I sort of think it will have to follow you'll put more use into the RR too. and ???

Or, ... the harder tire will probably free things up if that's what your after, but I can't guess if the freeing up will help entry, exit or mid corner without more input to go on. Try it. ... :)

fun question to think about.
 
Fab54 said:
The only tire rule is all four tires must be from the same manufacturer. I just noticed a typo in my original post. I meant the right rear does all the work. The left rear just gets in the way of things.
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Well, that's not the worst thing, but will work. You have a PM coming.
 
"I meant the right rear does all the work."

well that sure changes things and changes how what I wrote relates to what you asked. ... :)

oh well...
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edit up front: I read again what you asked and I don't think I understood what your asking well enough, but I went and wrote anyway not really knowing what you were asking.

I think ABR #69, much better understands your question then I do.

Just take what I wrote with a grain of salt, maybe it will fit and help out, maybe it won't. But I only wrote it to try to help. Sorry if I was and am confusing.

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and then you wrote: "The left rear just gets in the way of things."

Here's my thought for you on the sentence you wrote.

If your sprint racing or racing where you have to turn both left and right, then yes the LR or inside rear just gets in the way while turning. It gets in the way because if you have the same size tires on both ends of your staggered solid axle, the fronts must do all the turning of your kart.

It nets out to you must lift up or unload the LR or inside tire enough to make it easier for the fronts to turn the back of the kart. The less you get the LR off the track the harder it is for the fronts to turn your kart and the more hp gets eaten up. With a LTO(left turn only) kart you have stagger. Sure just having a smaller LR tire will want to make it turn to the left. The thing is though what ever stagger you have will only match up to one amount of turning. If you need to turn any direction other then what the amount of stagger your using matches up to, you get into the same problem of having to unload the LR or inside rear tire. I hope you are able to see it and how stagger will only exactly match up to one particular amount of turning. That is the key to understanding how LTO or offset karts work.

If you got the idea of stagger only matching up to one particular arc and to turn in any other amount something has to be done to the amount of weight on the LR, your moving forward in your thought process.

With LTO racing because of the stagger and the two rear tires being connected via a solid axle, things can be taken beyond just unloading the LR when needed. In fact we end up not unloading the LR at all for purposes of allowing it to slip, but we instead think in terms of only having to remove enough weight, grip or function from the LR to get the RR to do what we need it to do for us.

I'll net it out for your staggered solid axle. When your slowing down going into the corner your going to use the weight on the LR and the fact the LR has a slower surface speed because of stagger, to act as an anchor or rudder so the RR can roll around it. Your then going to travel in an arc, maybe very small or a very long arc rolling part of the corner until you need to accelerate. They because you have weight on your LR your going to start your acceleration off of the low gear smaller LR tire. Next comes shifting into high gear by allowing just enough weight to go to the RR so it, with it's faster surface speed, can out accelerate the LR. That puts you coming off the corner straightening out and again moving weight, because your turning less, back onto the LR to start the process over again.

That's it that's how stuff works with you race a LTO kart or car. The only thing that differs from a kart to an emod, to a stocker, to a bigblock, to a latemodle, to a sprint car, to a winged spring car; is the ability of what your racing to make your staggered solid axle operate as I explained above.

Does the RR do all the work?

The answer is no, it only does the work you need it to do.

Does the LR do all the work?

The answer is no, it only does the work you need it to do.

With a LTO do the fronts do all the work?

The answer is no, with an LTO the fronts are only needed to hold the front end up and to help you apply what ever hp you have available.

... and this is all just IMHO and ain't necessarily right anyway. ... :)
 
I've never raced oval dirt, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I can't understand why you wouldn't want to be getting as much bite out of that LR as possible. I thought that's why they designed the LTO kart with the driver offset. Of course with more weight on the left rear you would need to pay a lot more attention to your stagger. If the stagger is wrong, you're going to be dragging that LR around the corners. The other side is, with the correct stagger, you're going to be dragging that LR down the straight. The shortness of the track, the bigger the radius of the turn, the longer the straight, all come into play when determining stagger.

If my thinking is right, (and with my ego I'm always sure it is) there are a lot of variables associated with the calculation of the correct stagger. People are always giving the length of the track they're racing on, but without the turn radius, (with any length of track there is an almost infinite number of radiuses possible) if you haven't been to that track, it seems to me, it would be impossible to recommend a stagger with any degree of certainty. People do it, that's true, but I always wonder how accurate they could be!

The fact is, as a kart goes around a corner, the inside tire travels a shorter distance, (turns less revolutions) than the outside tire. To ensure that both tires are rolling, there is a formula to determine the circumference of each tire that ensures that both will be rolling and not one sliding. With all the forces that are occurring when a speeding kart goes around a corner, the formula cannot be perfect, just too many variables, but getting to the track with something that is close is better than a wild guess. Certainly better than taking the advice of someone who was never been to the track. Another thing I have noticed is this; advice, on stagger, is given without determining if the track has banking. After you measure the rear track width, center to center, if the track has banking, the degrees of banking will change the center to center measurement used for calculating stagger. One degree of banking will shorten that distance, two degrees even more, three degrees even more, etc. etc. and the change is not linear. The center to center distance decreases more and more with each degree of banking.

For instance; if you start with a 33 1/2" center to center measurement and you bank the kart five degrees, the center to center distance used for calculating stagger goes from 33 1/2" to 33 3/8". If the banking is 10 degrees, 33.0" would be the number used to calculate stagger. My spreadsheet rounds the numbers to the nearest 1/16. If you have questions, just send me a private email.

From the desk of Al Nunley
Comments compliments criticisms and questions always welcome.
If the data does not support the theory, get a new theory. (Al Nunley)
 
All, this is asphalt btw. But, any surface with dynamic loading, the LR in oval is unloaded to let the chassis rotate better.

Absolute stagger isn't a must, you just need enough to get in the corner and out. The stagger changes as dynamic loads change on the track. Harder left rear allows the LR to slip a little more as it's being unloaded. It's all about timing of the weight transfers. That's all different percentages in setup do is change how much and when weight is transferred. You could almost go as far to say that if the kart isn't unloading the LR making the need for a harder LR could be fixed with changing setup percentages. It could essentially do the same thing, if you know what you're doing.

If the rear axles were solidly planted, then absolute stagger would be more important.

-Edit- I think it would probably be a little easier to swap out a harder LR to minutely adjust timing of slip on the LR. Maybe I'm wrong. As long as you know why you're making changes, there could be several ways to go about getting the same effect. Just so long as you know why, and what the effects will be.
 
#65 said:
I don't think this came the way you intended. The LR turns less revolutions?
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Good catch. thank you. Obviously it turns the same number of revolutions as the outside tire. This means, because the distance traveled by the inside tire is less, if the stagger is not right, the inside tire will be skidding, not rolling. If it is making contact with the track, this is going to slow you down. A skidding tire has less side bite than a rolling tire, so the side bite would be less on that tire too. This is the whole point of antilock brakes, you can stop faster if the tires are rolling rather than skidding. If you've never had to make a panic stop, I mean a real panic stop, you can't appreciate your antilock brakes. You may already know it, but this is the reason karts spin out when you lockup the rear end, or it tries to. As long as the tire is rolling it has traction, but the moment it stops rolling, it loses most of its traction. If you ever get a chance to run four wheel brakes on a kart, you will be absolutely amazed at how much your driving technique needs to change.

From the desk of Al Nunley
Comments compliments criticisms and questions always welcome.
If the data does not support the theory, get a new theory. (Al Nunley)
 
1 big thing you obviously don't know is that when your L/R tire has too much bite, your kart will push so bad that you will often wind up off the track. Many of the winning drivers on dirt ovals know this and also know how to work around it, either with changing driving styles or Stagger.
 
jack burroughs said:
1 big thing you obviously don't know is that when your L/R tire has too much bite, your kart will push so bad that you will often wind up off the track. Many of the winning drivers on dirt ovals know this and also know how to work around it, either with changing driving styles or Stagger.
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what you "obviously don't know" is what I said.

From the desk of Al Nunley
Comments compliments criticisms and questions always welcome.
If the data does not support the theory, get a new theory. (Al Nunley)
 
Last Friday I got to watch the rear tires between apex of turn 4 and exit at the dirt track at Charlotte Motor Speedway, 210 times during two sets of qualifying.

The difference in travel made by the inside tire is insignificant and not a factor.

Both tires are traveling the same distance around the track. Just like a chain around a gear, one revolution around the track is one revolution around the track by all parts involved, including the tires. The only thing significant about the distance the kart travels is the path it takes. How tires interact with the track, effect the path the entire kart takes and nothing else. What you make the tires do means nothing at all, unless what you do effects the path of travel or speed of travel. It's not about rolling or which tire rolls the most or rolls less, it's about going around the track, exactly the same as a chain travels around a sprocket. ... wow I'm going to stop on that right now, never looked at stuff like that before and it's either pretty cool or totally wrong. ... :)

Back to rear tires and how they work between the apex of turn 4 and exit. It's about looking at which rear tire exposes what it's doing, by how you see steam and debris being thrown by the tire. It nets out to if you don't see the tire steaming throwing debris then it's gripping with the track. If you see it steaming then it's slipping. If you look for it you can see how and when, the use of each rear tire shifts, depending on what the car and the driver are doing. You can actually see when drive moves from the LR to the RR and back. If you watch for it enough you can see how a car taking pretty much the exact same line will be either slower or faster. You can get a pretty close idea of which rear tire is mainly driving the car. If you look for it and you know what to watch for; you can see the difference and know if a driver got a faster or slower time the second lap, because their RR tire came in, to get them better into high gear or if they fixed their line allowing them to go faster.

IMHO it's not at all about how a tire rolls, it's all about what each tires does for your driver, at different places around the track.

Though in this post I'm reporting what I observed at a WoO race, LTO karts work exactly the same way. The only difference is because of available hp. With more available hp you have more possibility to easily slip rear tires. But weather you have a lot of hp or a little, unless your traveling in an arc, which exactly matches up to how your axle wants to roll, one tire or the other or both must slip. Your setup is as much about gaining grip at tires when needed, as it is about being able to make a tire slip as needed, when needed. It really doesn't matter if your on a high hp machine or a low hp one, they both will run the setup gambit from; free to tight. And tight is about being bound to the track eating hp, not tight as pushing is often called.

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maybe?

... Fab54, is all this banter back and forth helping you and your understanding or just making things worse?
 
I run Vega yellows on the right/ Vega Reds on the left, on pavement, at King George Speedway, with great success. I have also run a softer Firestone on the left if the kart goes a little loose on exit. I get about 7 race weekends out of a Yellow RR, about 9 out of a RF, and ran the Red lefts all season and plan to run the next season as well. FYI, my LF spends apex to exit off the ground anyway...
 
alvin l nunley said:
what you "obviously don't know" is what I said.

From the desk of Al Nunley
Comments compliments criticisms and questions always welcome.
If the data does not support the theory, get a new theory. (Al Nunley)
Click to expand...

It's obvious to me that Jack knows exactly what you said. And correctly see's, how you are obviously wrong about how you think LTO's work.

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You wrote: "This means, because the distance traveled by the inside tire is less, if the stagger is not right, the inside tire will be skidding, not rolling. If it is making contact with the track, this is going to slow you down."

That is an incorrect concept. With a LTO the inside tire making contact with the track is what allows you to go faster, not slow you down.

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You also wrote: "A skidding tire has less side bite than a rolling tire"

Again that's an incorrect concept.

What is fast and what is not is determined by the tires forward bite and less side bite does not mean a tire is going to have less forward bite. In fact there is a limited amount of total bite, which allows for the reduction of use of side bite, to be able to provide you with additional forward bite.

The tires are not being skidded.

The amount of slip they incur is being controlled, which is totally opposite of uncontrolled skidding. Were discussing racing LTO, where grip and slip at both rear tires, are controlled applications. We are not talking about something which turns both left and right, with unwanted skidding of the inside rear. I agree the only thing inside rear skidding on a sprint kart can do is slow you down in a turn. But with a LTO the controlled slipping, is used in a way which makes it possible to increase speed through a turn, not reduce speed.
 
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