gcain747
New member
Let me start by letting everyone know that I am a new and happy Spyder owner. I read a great deal of this forum prior to buying my RT Limited. Because of all the great advice my first experience has been great and I just want to give back a little based on my other experience.
To begin with my son and I have raced oval track dirt and pavement for about 16 years. We have ran everything from dirt track go karts to 130 mph shifter karts on road courses and big cars up to late models and have a lot of experience with air pressure. I would like to pass on some of that experience to all you Spyder guys and gals.
First is air. We don't use air in our race car tires because air contains moisture. The more humid the air the more moisture you put in the tires. When tires get hot the moisuture turns to steam which increases your tire pressure. The more humid the air the more moisture and the more expansion when the tires are hot. We put nitrogen in our race car tires (and I put it in the Spyder tires) Nitrogen is a dry inert gas so it doesn't expand as much when it gets hot.
Second is your tire gauge. I read on one post where someone said that they tried 3 different gauges and none of them read the same. Here is what I do both at the race track and on the Spyder. On our race cars we have one gauge that we always use. When we go out to practice we set the tire pressure and make some laps. We then adjust the pressure according to how the car is handling. Some times we make as small as 1/4 psi adjustments. Air pressure is just a number. It is not magic. When I started riding the Spyder I used the gauge that came with the bike and I set the pressure at 18 and went riding. I came back and re-set it at 19. I did this several more times and found that with the gauge that came with the bike that 19.5 gave the best ride and handling. From now on I will only use that one gauge to set the pressure. If you used a high dollar gauge like the one we have from Longacer for our race car the actual pressure may be 18 or 21 it really doesn't matter. As long as you always set the pressure with the same gauge and with the tire at or near the same temperature you will be just fine. The whole idea is to find the sweet spot where your bike handles the best with the gauge you are going to carry with you.
By the way, we picked up our Spyder last Thursday and rolled over 1000 miles as of Monday night. Thanks to Sypderpops and all of this forum we didn't have any heat problems.
Hope this helps folks.:2thumbs::spyder2::yes:
To begin with my son and I have raced oval track dirt and pavement for about 16 years. We have ran everything from dirt track go karts to 130 mph shifter karts on road courses and big cars up to late models and have a lot of experience with air pressure. I would like to pass on some of that experience to all you Spyder guys and gals.
First is air. We don't use air in our race car tires because air contains moisture. The more humid the air the more moisture you put in the tires. When tires get hot the moisuture turns to steam which increases your tire pressure. The more humid the air the more moisture and the more expansion when the tires are hot. We put nitrogen in our race car tires (and I put it in the Spyder tires) Nitrogen is a dry inert gas so it doesn't expand as much when it gets hot.
Second is your tire gauge. I read on one post where someone said that they tried 3 different gauges and none of them read the same. Here is what I do both at the race track and on the Spyder. On our race cars we have one gauge that we always use. When we go out to practice we set the tire pressure and make some laps. We then adjust the pressure according to how the car is handling. Some times we make as small as 1/4 psi adjustments. Air pressure is just a number. It is not magic. When I started riding the Spyder I used the gauge that came with the bike and I set the pressure at 18 and went riding. I came back and re-set it at 19. I did this several more times and found that with the gauge that came with the bike that 19.5 gave the best ride and handling. From now on I will only use that one gauge to set the pressure. If you used a high dollar gauge like the one we have from Longacer for our race car the actual pressure may be 18 or 21 it really doesn't matter. As long as you always set the pressure with the same gauge and with the tire at or near the same temperature you will be just fine. The whole idea is to find the sweet spot where your bike handles the best with the gauge you are going to carry with you.
By the way, we picked up our Spyder last Thursday and rolled over 1000 miles as of Monday night. Thanks to Sypderpops and all of this forum we didn't have any heat problems.
Hope this helps folks.:2thumbs::spyder2::yes:
