Is she trying to kill me... Tracking and tyres

[Bail 33]

I had my 63 GT get its winters on and got a tweak to the tracking as I'd noticed my wheel wasn't dead straight to go straight, it also turned out my rears were basically bald. So new winters and a tiny tiny tweak to alignment...The issue is that car feels REALLY different...

I don't think its the tires, loose when new but bedded in now, but the steering is so sharp now it feels like any mildly abrupt movement unbalances the car and I'm going to spin out and die, its almost TOO responsive... Is this just me being weird, it almost feels unbalanced, like it wants to spin out, but yet when I do push it in the corner where I know I can it stays on track and doesn't lose grip anywhere. Or is that I somehow got used to driving on... ah-hem.. slicks for a while?

[nerdstrike 186]

What winters did you fit? I've got some Dunlop Wintersports on, and indeed the front grabs well but the back feels loose. It's infeasibly good fun/slightly scary. As long as I keep the sudden moves out, it handles very well as long as it's 6 degrees or less. Felt pretty floaty in the unseasonable warmth recently.

I think the thing about the winter tyres is that they have more flex in all the extra rubber blocks, which means it takes more movement to load up the tyre to full grip. That's my take on it anyway. I'll keep having fun with them until the weather improves and I acquire spare rims!

[Paul 442]

1 hour ago, nerdstrike said:

 Felt pretty floaty in the unseasonable warmth recently.

Where on Earth are you living, weather's been lousy recently!!!

[Keethos 842]

I've never had winter tyres before but I'd imagine they have a fair amount of rubber on them which as nerdstrike has mentioned could be giving you that weird wobbly twitchy feeling unless you fully load them when cornering hard. I had a bit of this when I had some fresh new conti's put on but wouldn't say it ever felt out of hand or like the car wanted to spin out all of a sudden.

[Lauren 2259]

What was your front toe set to? Is it parallel, i.e., set to zero? 

Winter tyres in warm temps never feel sharp though, you normally lose steering feel and they feel a bit vague rather than sharp on turn in. What tyres did you fit?