Prologue: I haven't posted the Tesla Cam's footage I captured last month. I might still to see if someone else can find value in it, but I didn't find it particularly useful. Due to technical difficulties/biological input errors I only captured one trip to the store and I believe I only did the sideways once on it. That one was a fairly major shift where the rear end let loose. Which was at a helpful point to get me past a cone on the outside. However I don't know if the T/C turned off acceleration because it was immediately going into another turn in the opposite direction and I didn't have much use for going faster at that point.
The one place where there was sideways during acceleration, coming out of a tight 180 right at the start of the trip, didn't happen on the trip I managed to capture. However even though the rear tires were not entirely pointed in the direction of travel the accelerator was responsive to being mashed down and things went quite quickly even as the rear wheels got back in line. It was a good understeer moment.
There was one very long curve, that maybe drifting could happen in but frankly weird and bad things were happening with the tires. I seriously wasn't sure I was going to finish my trip due to the tires and rims getting a divorce from each other, or at least a trial separation. It felt like the sidewalls were waffling or something. It felt very, very bad. After the hustle to the store was over, but even before I fully stopped, the acrid scent of tire death was wafting in through my driver's window. :/ It was unfortunate that my new Nourishment Procuring Run wheels had been backordered and did not arrive in time for that day. They have arrived now though, and so we get to the meat of it.
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These are the new tires. And driving on these are, of course, a world apart from the PRIMACY MXM4. They are yesterday's tires top shelf, having been surpassed yet still legit. Most importantly for me they came at yesterday's prices. The bad news is, unlike say the RE71R, the Falkens have a dedicated outside so I probably not get as much time out of them as otherwise, the Model 3 being camber challenged with no stock adjustment for that. So I probably only saved money now, rather than money over the long term. But money now matters as I also had to spend $700 on some rims for them. Getting a full second set of wheels for $1200 felt pretty good.
The rims are 21lb, like the stock rims, and pretty plain cast stuff but functional. Offset is +38mm, rather than the +40mm of the stock.
I linked both of those tire pages because if you scroll down you can see the specs for them. You can see that the Falkens stick out much further around the edge than the 5mm suggested by going 235 to 245 (245-235 = 10mm, half inside and half outside). The tread width is actually 9" compared to 7.8", so on top of the 2mm from the rim offset, these treads stick out nearly 3/4" of an inch further.
Turns out that might matter. In my previous two days I'd nicked only one bystander in total. Yesterday, I clipped a minimum of 1 bystander each of four trips, for a total of 7(!) on the day. The first trip there ones one that I had forgotten was there, and I was on an entirely wrong line and stuck it proper and have some rash on my front driver's side bumper for my sins. But the rest were passenger side touches, all but one with the rear wheel. One of them I didn't even knew happen, I thought It had been a transgression free traverse until I was told otherwise later.
So I'm not sure exactly what was going on. If I had been that close before, and this extra bit of width was enough? Or if this has to do with my timing being off because the tires are turning the vehicle sooner than before? Or maybe the rear tire before when weaving hard was sliding out a slight bit and now with better grip it's holding the line?
One thing for sure is that the front tires are getting a lot more work that the rear. Each trip I was checking tire pressure and letting out air to return to starting 38PSI, if need be. The rear tires barely budged, maybe 1/2 a PSI total. The front tires though I had to release at 1 - 1.5lb after each of the first 3 trips to bring them back in line.
I'm probably still going a bit too ham. OK I'm definitely going to ham. I'll need to slow down to speed up. But I'm not seeing crazy understeer anymore. However when I get a corner right it feels really good, things turn around like they are supposed to now, and as long as I wait enough I can really blow out of corners. Good tires are a good thing. Now all that is left is to get good myself.
So what of the title of this post? The store was holding a PAX based Noob competition, and I most definitely count as a Noob. Even with a 2 second transgression included, on what wasn't my fastest time, I still placed second out of a field of more than ten. In the Not A Noob category I would placed mid-pack if I'd been able to stop offing bystanders. There was no real hope for contending for the top of that category on that day though, as it included someone with their name immortalized in the rule book of the Sandwich Commandeering and Consumption Association (SCCA). Sandbaggers, get ye to the Expert group already.
The one place where there was sideways during acceleration, coming out of a tight 180 right at the start of the trip, didn't happen on the trip I managed to capture. However even though the rear tires were not entirely pointed in the direction of travel the accelerator was responsive to being mashed down and things went quite quickly even as the rear wheels got back in line. It was a good understeer moment.
There was one very long curve, that maybe drifting could happen in but frankly weird and bad things were happening with the tires. I seriously wasn't sure I was going to finish my trip due to the tires and rims getting a divorce from each other, or at least a trial separation. It felt like the sidewalls were waffling or something. It felt very, very bad. After the hustle to the store was over, but even before I fully stopped, the acrid scent of tire death was wafting in through my driver's window. :/ It was unfortunate that my new Nourishment Procuring Run wheels had been backordered and did not arrive in time for that day. They have arrived now though, and so we get to the meat of it.
------------------
These are the new tires. And driving on these are, of course, a world apart from the PRIMACY MXM4. They are yesterday's tires top shelf, having been surpassed yet still legit. Most importantly for me they came at yesterday's prices. The bad news is, unlike say the RE71R, the Falkens have a dedicated outside so I probably not get as much time out of them as otherwise, the Model 3 being camber challenged with no stock adjustment for that. So I probably only saved money now, rather than money over the long term. But money now matters as I also had to spend $700 on some rims for them. Getting a full second set of wheels for $1200 felt pretty good.
The rims are 21lb, like the stock rims, and pretty plain cast stuff but functional. Offset is +38mm, rather than the +40mm of the stock.
I linked both of those tire pages because if you scroll down you can see the specs for them. You can see that the Falkens stick out much further around the edge than the 5mm suggested by going 235 to 245 (245-235 = 10mm, half inside and half outside). The tread width is actually 9" compared to 7.8", so on top of the 2mm from the rim offset, these treads stick out nearly 3/4" of an inch further.
Turns out that might matter. In my previous two days I'd nicked only one bystander in total. Yesterday, I clipped a minimum of 1 bystander each of four trips, for a total of 7(!) on the day. The first trip there ones one that I had forgotten was there, and I was on an entirely wrong line and stuck it proper and have some rash on my front driver's side bumper for my sins. But the rest were passenger side touches, all but one with the rear wheel. One of them I didn't even knew happen, I thought It had been a transgression free traverse until I was told otherwise later.
So I'm not sure exactly what was going on. If I had been that close before, and this extra bit of width was enough? Or if this has to do with my timing being off because the tires are turning the vehicle sooner than before? Or maybe the rear tire before when weaving hard was sliding out a slight bit and now with better grip it's holding the line?
One thing for sure is that the front tires are getting a lot more work that the rear. Each trip I was checking tire pressure and letting out air to return to starting 38PSI, if need be. The rear tires barely budged, maybe 1/2 a PSI total. The front tires though I had to release at 1 - 1.5lb after each of the first 3 trips to bring them back in line.
I'm probably still going a bit too ham. OK I'm definitely going to ham. I'll need to slow down to speed up. But I'm not seeing crazy understeer anymore. However when I get a corner right it feels really good, things turn around like they are supposed to now, and as long as I wait enough I can really blow out of corners. Good tires are a good thing. Now all that is left is to get good myself.
So what of the title of this post? The store was holding a PAX based Noob competition, and I most definitely count as a Noob. Even with a 2 second transgression included, on what wasn't my fastest time, I still placed second out of a field of more than ten. In the Not A Noob category I would placed mid-pack if I'd been able to stop offing bystanders. There was no real hope for contending for the top of that category on that day though, as it included someone with their name immortalized in the rule book of the Sandwich Commandeering and Consumption Association (SCCA). Sandbaggers, get ye to the Expert group already.
