This is my idea, let me know if this is not a good idea though. I am taking delivery of my P3D+ on November 26th. I plan on taking the pilot sport 4s tires off and putting on Michelin Pilot alpin pa4 n-spec winter performance tires on the stock 20 inch rims. when spring comes around I was going to get aftermarket ts sports line staggered 20 inch rims and use the stock Tesla Pilot sport 4s tires on the front of the new 20 inch rims and buying wider Pilot sport 4s tires for the rear (20x10 wheels). both front and rear will be the Ps4s tires but the front would be Tesla OEM spec while the rears not Tesla OEM spec. anyone see a problem with this?
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Drag racing tires for Model 3
- Thread starter Johnabis
- Start date
I don't see any major problems, but i'd ask what your goals for this are? A staggered set-up on the Model 3 isn't really ideal from a handling point of view since the car already has great weight distribution. You may end up finding that you have lots of understeer which isn't always desirable.
Personally i would go with a square set-up with 255/265's (i'm running this now with 19x9.5" rims) to keep ideal handling but also get some thicker rubber under there.
Thanks for your response as I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to wheels. My main goal is traction at the drag strip but I don't want to hurt handling either. if it matters, these wheels are lighter then the aero wheels apparently. see link below. not sure why it just shows "20"
20
I didn't realize you could fit 19x9.5 in the front. thought it would cause some rubbing.
Oh yea, some people (@MountainPass) were even running 10" wide wheels with 265 tires, but that's pretty extreme. I can confirm a 19x9.5 with 265 tires does not rub, but you might bump a fender under very hard braking and turning.
I bought some VMR wheels and they have some pretty attractive options in many different sizes (normally 19" is the largest though): Wheels
The 18" wheels and MXM4 tires on a 3P- have done 0-60 in 3.42s (3.17s with 1ft rollout) according to "OldNSlo" on dragy. Why do you feel you need more traction at a drag strip? I'd submit you don't actually need more traction, you need a wheel/tire combo with a lower polar moment of inertia. This will allow more of the software-limited power to get to the ground.
for me it would be stock performance suspension. as far as the 20 inch wheels it would be so I can reuse my pilot sport's that came with the car. The wheels i'm looking at are actually lighter then the aero wheels even though they are 20's
I can't express how happy it makes me to see a general acceptance of square tire setups. We have been preaching this forever! You could install stock size drag radials and outperform any size street tire. We don't know much about drag racing though!
So if you are just looking for straight line drag performance the car is AWD so use the same tires front and rear. If you are looking for track type performance currently the car’s ESC will not let you oversteer when it loses traction it understeers, wider tires in the back could make this worse.
I drove my 3 yesterday on an empty parking lot of solid ice to test the handeling under a slide. I could not get it to oversteer no matter what I did, the back end stated planted. It did want to plow and understeer though.
I drove my 3 yesterday on an empty parking lot of solid ice to test the handeling under a slide. I could not get it to oversteer no matter what I did, the back end stated planted. It did want to plow and understeer though.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
As mentioned earlier in the thread, all you need is the tire and wheel combo with the lowest moment of inertia (which doesn’t necessarily mean lowest weight, but it will be correlated), with traction at least as good as the MXM4 tires, for the drag strip. The P3D, even with the MXM4 tires, is not traction limited with current power output.
Based on the 125ft MXM4 60-0 stopping distance, you need to exceed about 9.44m/s^2 (0.96g) to break even those tires free. The current P3D doesn’t exceed that; assuming constant acceleration (which admittedly it isn’t, because it hits the power limit before 60mph and acceleration starts to drop off), it accelerates at ~8m/s^2.
The PS4S have about 105ft stopping distance, so those allow 11.2m/s^2 (1.1g) acceleration, so they are not even close to traction limited.
So, just minimize the kinetic energy you store in your spinning wheels. Won’t make much difference though - do some rough calculations for kinetic energy in the spinning wheels with vehicle moving at 60mph vs. the energy of a 4000lb car at 60mph, to see it won’t matter much to change wheel/tire combos.
Based on the 125ft MXM4 60-0 stopping distance, you need to exceed about 9.44m/s^2 (0.96g) to break even those tires free. The current P3D doesn’t exceed that; assuming constant acceleration (which admittedly it isn’t, because it hits the power limit before 60mph and acceleration starts to drop off), it accelerates at ~8m/s^2.
The PS4S have about 105ft stopping distance, so those allow 11.2m/s^2 (1.1g) acceleration, so they are not even close to traction limited.
So, just minimize the kinetic energy you store in your spinning wheels. Won’t make much difference though - do some rough calculations for kinetic energy in the spinning wheels with vehicle moving at 60mph vs. the energy of a 4000lb car at 60mph, to see it won’t matter much to change wheel/tire combos.
Is that true? I've no idea personally, but has anyone actually tried putting slicks on the car and comparing the times? Just because it doesn't burn rubber doesn't mean it's not traction limited.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I question this as well, but could be true. I got mine out on a solid ice parking lot over the weekend to test the ESC and handeling under a slide. The computer is amazing at straight line traction. On the ice I would get a slight slip from a stop when I floored it then just traction. After the initial no slip at all going straight. The big difference I noticed in this was in an ICE you can hear/feel the power getting cut, in the Tesla you can’t feel it but the car is deffinetly doing it.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Minor correction.... In my prior post, I should have said “with current peak torque” (rather than “current power output”). Peak acceleration (torque) occurs before peak power. And increasing peak power output (likely battery limited) won’t necessarily mean higher peak torque.
Identical times - yes, that is additional evidence. And instrumented runs of the maximum acceleration show that it is not about to break loose, particularly with the PS4S. One of these days I’ll measure with my car side-by-side with the AWD.
People have run different wheel combos on the P3D. None of them make any significant difference to 0-60 times. To the extent they do, it is presumably the weight.
The car is not traction limited. We can revisit this when Tesla uncorks the P3D to 3.0sec 0-60 without 1-foot rollout.
. Then we might be breaking the MXM4s loose at the beginning of the run.
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That would be nice.The car is not traction limited. We can revisit this when Tesla uncorks the P3D to 3.0sec 0-60 without 1-foot rollout.
yes this is what I'm hoping they do, I guess we'll find out in the next few months. I ordered my winter tires already an should be here on Tuesday. I'll put them on the stock 20 inch wheels. I guess i'll look into the aftermarket wheels in March so I still have some time to decide.
ElectricGhost
Member
Traction at the drag strip is a non-issue. I have the P3D- with its 235 All Season tires and it turned a 1.865 0-60 foot, 11.844 quarter mile. This was only 0.030 sec slower than I what I believe was a V-10, AWD Lamborghini Huracan I ran against. However he has launch control and at least 30 mm wider, much stickier summer tires. (The model 3 won by the way, lol. EV's are quick to launch. Beat him by half a second due to 0.9 sec quicker R/T)
Conclusion: Don't build the car for drag strip as at worst the the OEM 235 all seasons tire are just fine (unless we get a launch mode). Nothing wrong with building it if for a real track through.
Conclusion: Don't build the car for drag strip as at worst the the OEM 235 all seasons tire are just fine (unless we get a launch mode). Nothing wrong with building it if for a real track through.
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