Quote:
Originally Posted by tlr3715
You should see my thread about tire width and E-throttle rant. Very relevant to this topic. My opinion 245 width is no where near enough tire for 455 HP. Go wide and enjoy your engine.
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Hello, your observation of a decreasing ratio between tire width and engine maximum horsepower from late 1990s to nowadays are valid. But it is not sufficient to justify your point.
A better way to describe whether car manufacturers have mistakenly undersized the tire on the ever more powerful sports cars would be the ratio: (maximum horsepower/maximum friction force can give by tires). With just the ratio you proposed (tire width/horsepower), it is insufficient to evaluate whether the tire width is capable for a given horsepower, because apparently modern tires are more grippy (i.e. provide higher friction force with the same area under the same downward pressure) thanks to the advancement in chemistry. Not to mention the stability control and other performance technologies have improved a lot on modern sports cars.
For your reference, gen6 Camaro ZL1 1LE (lap time: 2:45.0), Camaro SS 1LE (2:54.8) are faster on the same track with ever more impressive lap time comparing to those sports cars in the 1990s and early 2000s.To clarify, the lap times are nicely complied by Car and Driver:
https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...storical-data/. Yet, you will find Camaro ZL1 1LE and Camaro SS1LE did poorly for the ratio of tire width/horsepower, ZL1 1LE is about 0.5 (325mm/650hp) and Camaro SS 1LE is 0.68 (305mm/450hp). Would you say Chevy “underwheeled” these 2 cars because they are so low on the width/horsepower ratio? If ZL1 1LE is more slippery than SS 1LE due to a lower ratio of tire width/horsepower, how did ZL1 1LE finish the track quicker than SS1LE?
Another piece of data would be, the lap time for the gen5 Camaro SS 1LE (2:54.8) is almost as good as 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1(2:51.8). I can say 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1(over 600hp) has a wider tire (335mm) and way more horsepower than Camaro SS1LE but failed to do proportionally better.
With these data above, maybe I can say a lower width/horsepower ratio marks the advancement in modern day sports car technology. There will always be a trade off between weight, rolling friction, maximum grip and faster lap time.