Re: red line tires
Hi Rob,
One of the benifits of getting a good road force balance is indexing the wheel and tire assembly. For instance, you measure the runout and imbalance of both, and then index the high or heavy spot of the tire with the low or light spot on the rim. It is a tedious process, but once done to perfection , you can minimize run-out, imbalance, road force variation, and consequently, use less lead !
No, I am in no way affiliated with the people who sell road force equipment! I actually came across it after trying EVERYTHING to get a high speed shimmy/vibration out of my Cobra. New wheels, tires, etc. - nothing could cure the slight "jack hammering" of the steering wheel. And I am running vintage Michelin XWX tires, a supposedly high quality tire. I found a guy who swore he could fix it. I brought him my two front tires, and we found 1 at 75lbs of force, and one at 40. He indexed them and got them down to 15 and 19 lbs , mind you these are wire wheels and vintage 78 series tires! The difference was unbelievable, it transformed the car. The downside was that he charged $200 to balance two tires! So, I bought the equipment for my shop. I now road force EVERY tire on every car I have here, and have done it for a lot of friends that were having repo tire problems.
We also do the American LeMans series Viper Team tires , as well as a bunch of road race guys tires. The Viper team is sponsored by Michelin and BBS, they require road force balancing . What does that tell you?
I highly recommed this for any car. For your daily driver you will notice a difference in smoothness and tire wear will be much better.
I can't help but think that a tire with less weight on it , and one that is more round and has much less rolling resistance would make a car a few clicks faster in the 1/4. I know it makes road race cars faster!
Give it a shot and let me know how it works. I am curious to see what happens, and what you think!
Colin
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