<VV> Corvair tire pressure

[Jim Burkhard]

Yeah, the 40/60 --> 20/30 numbers sort of work out, but 
that's just coincidental.  Tire pressure measured in psig 
isn't going to have any sort of direct relationship to a % 
weight distribution.

Remember too, that the reason GM was calling for such low 
pressures in the front (wasn't it 15 psig F & 26 psig R?) 
was to get the car to understeer more (i.e. fronts lose 
traction earlier, not gain traction). The thought was that 
"in the hands of Marion the librarian, it is better to 
understeer than oversteer". Hence, get the front to slip 
long before the rear by way of underinflated front tires.

Jim Burkhard

Clark Hartzel wrote:
> Remember that in the 60's we didn't have radial tires.  If you put 30 pounds
> of air in a nylon bias ply tire on the front of a Corvair, you might only
> have an inch or so of contact pattern touching the ground!  My way of
> thinking is you want at least 4-5" of fore and aft contact to match the 5"
> of width on the ground.  The 40%-60% weight distribution divided by 2 is
> 20-30 so 20 pounds front and 30 pounds rear is pretty close to the
> recommended pressure.
> Clark Hartzel