Torn between staggered vs square setup! Set me straight.
10-12-16, 04:56 PM
#26
Do you mean "evenly" in the sense of even wear across the tread? Because that's an alignment issue.
If you mean "evenly" in the sense that all four tires now wear at the same overall rate, so you can change them all at the same time, that's fine but you have NOT increased overall tire life.
If the wear rate at the front is 1/2 the wear rate at the rears, and get (say) 16k miles life out of rears and 32k life out of fronts for street tires, that does not mean you will get 32k out of all four tires by rotating! You will get 24k miles out of all four. The overall average wear rate will be the SAME.
Also, on the street, with a reasonable alignment, and left-side tires wear similarly to right-side tires, you can ensure even wear between all four tires with ONE well-timed rotation if there is greater wear at one end of the car (like on an fwd car or decently powered near-50/50 rwd car). Mazda3, wait until fronts are about 60% to the treadwear indicators and rears are at about 40% to the treadwear inicators, rotate, and all four get to the TWIs at the same time. Without rotating every 3k miles... With a wonky alignment, worst case rotate every 10k miles for 40k mile average life tires to ensure each tire gets a stint at each corner.
On some cars like my old 240SXs (modestly powered front-weight-biased FR), I've gotten get even wear without rotating at all.
Wouldn't that much more wear on the outside front indicate too much front roll stiffness bias?
I've always put more heat and wear on the outside rear on my street/track cars on the setups I've gravitated to.
On the 240Z I would rotate Hoosiers between events (2 track days without rotating) and get 6-8 track days out of them.
Street-driving the S2000 and FD to and from and between events on R888s and NT01s, sometimes don't rotate at all if I do enough CCW tracks (NHMS, Palmer) events to even out wear from CW tracks (Mosport, the Glen, Thompson...).
I'm doing track days/time trials in modded street cars, not RACING, so not exactly the same thing. I can *usually* live with a 0.5 sec slower lap time...
Anyway, my 0.02, fwiw...
If you mean "evenly" in the sense that all four tires now wear at the same overall rate, so you can change them all at the same time, that's fine but you have NOT increased overall tire life.
If the wear rate at the front is 1/2 the wear rate at the rears, and get (say) 16k miles life out of rears and 32k life out of fronts for street tires, that does not mean you will get 32k out of all four tires by rotating! You will get 24k miles out of all four. The overall average wear rate will be the SAME.
Also, on the street, with a reasonable alignment, and left-side tires wear similarly to right-side tires, you can ensure even wear between all four tires with ONE well-timed rotation if there is greater wear at one end of the car (like on an fwd car or decently powered near-50/50 rwd car). Mazda3, wait until fronts are about 60% to the treadwear indicators and rears are at about 40% to the treadwear inicators, rotate, and all four get to the TWIs at the same time. Without rotating every 3k miles... With a wonky alignment, worst case rotate every 10k miles for 40k mile average life tires to ensure each tire gets a stint at each corner.
On some cars like my old 240SXs (modestly powered front-weight-biased FR), I've gotten get even wear without rotating at all.
Wouldn't that much more wear on the outside front indicate too much front roll stiffness bias?
I've always put more heat and wear on the outside rear on my street/track cars on the setups I've gravitated to.
On the 240Z I would rotate Hoosiers between events (2 track days without rotating) and get 6-8 track days out of them.
Street-driving the S2000 and FD to and from and between events on R888s and NT01s, sometimes don't rotate at all if I do enough CCW tracks (NHMS, Palmer) events to even out wear from CW tracks (Mosport, the Glen, Thompson...).
I'm doing track days/time trials in modded street cars, not RACING, so not exactly the same thing. I can *usually* live with a 0.5 sec slower lap time...
Anyway, my 0.02, fwiw...
Last edited by LargeOrangeFont; 10-12-16 at 04:58 PM.
10-12-16, 05:17 PM
#27
Senior Member
It's safe to say that MOST people on these forums don't race, and this particular thread was never about a RACE setup anyway.
All that said, there is still no ONE WAY. Non-staggered is not always inherently faster, and for higher-powered setups staggered makes a lot of sense as the rears are seeing a more heat load (power into the ground) through the rears.
IF you race, you will most likely do what the rules allow. If they say tires can be no wider than XXX mm wide, front or rear, then you'll most likely run a square setup with XXX widths. IF rules average front/rear widths, you have options...
Rules in my club average front/rear. If I run Hoosier A7s next year, I can run 245/275 and stay in my class. Wider average and I bump to one of the "super" classes intended for pure race cars, window nets required.
What you run for competition depends first of all on the RULES.
Or will grow into knowing (you will also grow into 18s instead of 17s so you can fit wider tires).
"Wide body" front fenders bolt right on and work (in the rear you have to cut/weld the unibody to bolt "wide body" fenders on and actually have them work).
In my opinion the reason to run a stagger fitment in racing is to fit a WIDER tire in the back than you can fit up front and not a NARROWER tire up front than you can fit up front.
Right, in the competitive sport of racing you want the lowest lap time possible (and usually on some kind of budget).
This is the suspension/tire forum, not the race forum, and the original poster from 2.5 years ago was talking about HPDE anyway.
Not every tire recommendation needs to be based on lap times, and in any case I *still* maintain that there's WAY less *if any* actual lap time benefit in "staggered" vs. "non-staggered" given same average width than is usually touted.
Also, you don't ever want a skinnier tire up front than you can fit. That is less traction overall even if you are adjusting the chassis bias.
You might want a wider rear tire than you can fit up front. It will add overall traction and you can adjust the chassis balance and put up with added cost of not being able to rotate tires.
Last edited by ZDan; 10-12-16 at 05:20 PM.
