CK1_TT

what doesn't make sense to me is that the lower pressure in the rear tires is intended to dial in understeer... TT's, at least '01 and later models w/ the MKII supsension, are known to understeer.

My question is this:
I know that increasing the rear tire pressures relative to the front is a way to dial in less understeer/more oversteer in the TT, so why wouldn't I want to even out the tire preassures in the front and rear in order to acheive more balanced handling?

Isn't balance handling the hallmark of a great sports car? Isn't that one of the characteristics that makes the S2000 so great on the track?

I'm just trying to make sense of all of this... I'm thinking for a good, balanced handling, and optimal street handling performance it would be best to set all tires to around 35-36 psi, right?

AxeYrCat

isn't the understeer/oversteer inflation calculation most accurate on 50/50 weight distribution?

*btw, i'm just guessing at this, i have nothing to back it up.*

Laguna

...and not tire inflation.

I just like the way it feels with equalized pressure front and rear. That's this week! Who knows what I'll do next week. The nice thing about it is I can experiment.

CK1_TT

that tire pressure on the TT works as follows:

Lower the tire preassure in the rears relative to the fronts to dial in understeer, and the opposite to dial in oversteer... this is what I've read, and what others have experienced to be true.

I also have read that the MKII suspension TT's naturally favor understeer, and I believe the opposite is true of the MKI suspension TT's (in that they favor oversteer). I'm wondering if putting higher preassure in the front relative to the rear started w/ the MKI TT's in an effort to balance out oversteer, and rather than complicate things further, Audi just decided to make that the pressure rule for all TT's regardless of suspension setup. Favoring understeer in all situations would tend to err on the side of safety for the relatively average driver, right?

Is this Audi covering their ****, or is the best performance with the MKII acheived by the 36/33 pressure setup?

CK1_TT

but what I'm getting at is that that 50/50 distribution was an effort to come out at the end result of balanced/even handling...

What do you set your pressure at all around?

joe@vwvortex

I currently run 36 - 34 with my 235/40/18's on 8x8.5" rims. Seems to work well for me. Lot's of factors involved though. Wheel size, wheel width, type of tire etc. I've tried a bunch of different combos and this is the one that I like the most so far.

Laguna

Yesterday I set them up at 36 f&r.

bldn10

After the initial handling "issues," I think Audi is doing everything they can to prevent oversteer.

TTschwing

Lower pressures in the rear encourage Oversteer (to compensate for the natural understeer characteristics to a point). Tire slip angles change. Higher front vs rear balances a stock TT better because of this. I run even pressures front and rear, byt I have a totally different set-up and suspension parts which neutralizes much of the natural understeer...

CK1_TT

but taken from a post made by JohnLZ7W late yesterday:

"With the TT at least, part of the reason we run with lower pressure in the back is to dial in understeer. As you increase tire pressure for the rear tires you will get more neutral handling."

I don't know why it's the opposite w/ the TT, but for some reason it is! I actually just drove my car to the service station, and used the air hose to put both front and rears at 36 psi... The handling difference was immediately noticeable, and from my rather novice observations, what the previous quote stated appeard to be true.

Any idea why this might be?