at least partly the explanation of side bite. Section 2.9 deals with
induced drag caused by tire deformation (slip angle). According to my
rough calculations, 10 to 15% of the HP available on a stock 4-cycle
kart with a good conventional setup will be needed to overcome the
induced drag of the tires in a corner. As the kart comes closer to
bicycling (100% of the total weight transferred to the right side of
the kart), that induced drag might take up 30% of available HP.
With too much side bite, I think the kart is transferring more weight
onto the right side than is needed for the tires to generate
sufficient grip. That should allow for faster corner speeds, but a
kart doesn't have enough inertia or HP to overcome the induced drag
and take advantage of the extra grip.
Conventional wisdom in karting is that too much grip will slow you
down. People do lots of weird things to kart tires to "take bite out
of them". In all the changes and adjustments that you see, what they
are really doing is increasing the cornering stiffness of the tire,
which reduces slip angle.
I know that none of this has much to do with simulators, but it would
be nice to get some feedback to see if my thoughts are making any
sense.
Pat Dotson
> The other thread broke down into a discussion of kart setup and weight
> transfer. I'd like to concentrate on the side bite issue.
> Paul Laidlaw pointed out that lateral force v. vertical load is not
> linear (I was thinking of slip angle curves at low levels of slip).
> But the force v. load curves I have seen (Gillespie) don't go to zero.
> The bottom of the curve starts at 200 lbs vertical load. It is
> approximately linear up to about 400 lbs. Most karts weight less than
> 400 lbs total. The most load any kart tire is ever likely to see is
> 200 lbs. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any actual kart
> tire data. Still, I think we can assume a linear load v. lateral
> force curve up to 200 lbs.
> If that's true, then there isn't any inherent advantage to balancing
> the left/right load, is there? The key to getting the most grip is to
> have the right compound on the right side given the load while
> cornering.