First impressions of the Pani on track...

Macke said:

According to the Bridgestone technicians, that's what you are supposed to do...

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Interesting .I have not used Bridgestone for a few years but running Pirelli or a soft Dunlop will suffer from cold tearing quite bad on a cold day .
The softs worked really well in warmer climates .

Read up a little on the VO 1 seems they are all temperature tyre . We have two national series here one using Dunlops the other Pirelli the Bridgestones we don't get to use unfortunately.

wilkson said:

Read up a little on the VO 1 seems they are all temperature tyre . We have two national series here one using Dunlops the other Pirelli the Bridgestones we don't get to use unfortunately.

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Yes, all of the Bridgestones lately have been getting the trickle-down rubber compound technology from MotoGP and the effective temperature ranges on the tires has been very wide compared to past tires. The BT-003's had a Soft/Medium/Hard option, and it was to the point where you needed to run the right tire for the right conditions or you'd have grip/wear problems. Now with the R10 Evo tire, we can run a Medium front and a Hard rear and pretty much handle every condition with phenomenal grip and excellent wear. This also has been happening with the slicks ever since the V01 came out, and the V02 is supposed to be even better in that regard. Can't wait to try it out here in the U.S. - we are supposed to be getting some soon....

Hej Macke! Who is doing the work with your ECU? Just out of curiosity, could you share some lap times?

Thanx!

PM sent!

Damnit! Just read your blog!!! You OK?

Better now, thanx!

Superlight1199 said:

Better now, thanx!

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I couldn't read what happened to your noggin . What happened ?

PM sent.

Superlight1199 said:

PM sent.

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PM? There are a lot of people who lurk on this thread and enjoy reading it, and also want to know!

Hope you are doing well and recover fast.

Ok, so here's the preassures that I got from the Bridgestone guys at the official Bredgestone tyre test last week.

Battlax V02 SBK (cold/hot)
Front: 1,8-1,9kg / 2,2-2,3kg
Rear: 1,4-1,5kg / 1,8-1,9kg

Battlax V01 SBK (cold/hot)
Front: 1,7-1,85kg / 2,0-2,15kg
Rear: 1,7-1,85kg / 2,05-2,2kg

Battlax R10 (hot)
Front: 2,1kg
Rear: 1,7-1,85kg

Rain E05/E08 (cold/hot)
Front: 1,9-2,2kg / 1,9-2,3kg
Rear: 2,0-2,4kg / 2,0kg

Battlax S20 EVO (Street, cold)
Front: 2,3kg
Rear: 2,1kg

Dunno why they bother even stating the cold preassure, since it's pretty irrelevant... But these are the numbers i got...

Set the pressures cold

If you set the preassures cold, you will get different operating preassure in different conditions. The tyre is designed to work at an optimal preassure at it's working temperature and if you set the preassure cold, when the ambient temperature is let's say 8 degrees celsius (ie. the tyre is 8 degrees), you will get bigger rise in preassure when the tyre reaches it's optimal working temperature (about 85 degrees celsius) than you do if you set your tyre preassue cold when the ambient temperature is 30 degrees celsius.

So, if you set the cold temp to let's say 1,8kg, the tyre will have different preassure at it's optimal working temperature (about 85 degrees) depending on what the ambient temperature (and tyre temperature) is at the time you set the cold preassure.

What matters is what the preassure is when the tyre is doing it's job at the track (ie. hot preassure). That's why we always have been told to set- and control the tyre preassure at the tyre's optimal working temperature. That working temperature is often pretty constant, no matter what the ambient temperature is (unless the ambient temperatures are extremely cold, and the tyre never reaches ity's optimal temperature, or extremely hot and the tyre over heats).

We use the cold preassure to set a basic preassure in the tyre when it's new. Then we use the practise sessions to come in a couple of times and meassure tyre temp and preassure. Then adjust the preassure during the first session. If we use the same tyre for the next session, we already have an optimal preassure for that one. If we fit a new tyre, we meassure the cold preassure on the used one after it has cooled down, and use it as a reference point. Then we now during the actual conditions that particular day and track, what cold preassure gives us the optimal hot preassure at the tyre working temperature. Then we set THAT cold preassure as a starting point on the next set of slicks. After each session we meassure the hot preassure and tyre temp, and monitor the preassure to keep a good idea of what cold preassure to use as a starting poit on each set of new tyres. So we DO actually meassure cold preassure, but only as a starting point and we figure out what cold preassure is the optimal for each day and each temperature...

Didn't find any relevant diagram to explain it, but this one is close enough...

I always set them cold and re set them after a warm up or practice session to either bring them up or down depending on track temp etc . If I'm running a SC0 most likely set Psi at 23/24 cold would most likely bring it 3 Psi hot possibly more . Sounds the same as what i do really .

It's fairly common practice .

Great info, thanks. I've provided the PSI conversion below for those of us who use that measurement. Interesting that the V02 pressures are significantly lower than V01, I guess that new GP belt provides a much stiffer carcass than the prior design. That would be the first Bridgestone ever that I've seen recommendations as low as 25psi hot on.

Macke said:

Ok, so here's the preassures that I got from the Bridgestone guys at the official Bredgestone tyre test last week.

Battlax V02 SBK (cold/hot)
Front: 1,8-1,9kg / 2,2-2,3kg = 25-27psi / 31-33psi
Rear: 1,4-1,5kg / 1,8-1,9kg = 20-22psi / 25-27psi

Battlax V01 SBK (cold/hot)
Front: 1,7-1,85kg / 2,0-2,15kg = 24-26psi / 28-30.5psi
Rear: 1,7-1,85kg / 2,05-2,2kg = 24-26psi / 28.5-32psi

Battlax R10 (hot)
Front: 2,1kg = 29.5-30.5psi
Rear: 1,7-1,85kg = 24-26psi

Rain E05/E08 (cold/hot)
Front: 1,9-2,2kg / 1,9-2,3kg = 26.5-32psi / 26.5-33psi
Rear: 2,0-2,4kg / 2,0kg = 28-34psi / 28-29psi

Battlax S20 EVO (Street, cold)
Front: 2,3kg = 33psi
Rear: 2,1kg = 30psi

Dunno why they bother even stating the cold preassure, since it's pretty irrelevant... But these are the numbers i got...

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Also, the V02 rear tyre is 5mm higher than the V01. Which makes it 2.5mm at the rear axle. So if you want to keep the same geometry of the bike when switching to the V02, you need to lower the rear 2.5mm.

Front tyre is the same height....

So, the second real outing on the track was 2 days working as an instructor for a swedish trackday organizer called Actionpics. 2 whole days with lot's of tracktime, but maybe not a chance to push at 100% since I had to work as an instructor. But it was very good to get a lot of tracktime, and get to know her a bit better.

So, they say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. But well... She kind of grows on you the Italian lady. I must say I was really surprised the first time on the track with the Pani. She wasn't what I expected AT ALL. It was more like racing a two stroke than a classic v-twin engined race bike. And she had a couple of small, shall we call them features or querks, that I really couldn't get along with the first time...

But after these last two days, we are on better terms the Pani and I. I have struggled a lot to get used to the strange power delivery of the short stroked, high reving, v-twin engine. The power curve is peaky, to say the least, and the on/off characteristics of the injection was horrible. But now I have started to get used to it.... I have started to get a better feeling and understanding of how the engine works, when it's time to shift, and how the power gets delivered. Also a second remap of the engine made her a bit easier to ride, and we got rid of SOME of the on/off feeling when opening the throttle. Also we made some changes to the engine braking which helped me a lot too.

So, at the end of the second day I really started to enjoy riding her for the first time. I could start pushing a bit more, and once I started to get along with the power delivery I could start provoking her a bit, and start to focus a bit more on the suspension setup and gearing. It feels like the gearing of the bike is a LOT more important on the Panigale than on any other race bike we have ever used. The peaky and narrow powerband, and the short gears, is probably the reason for that. So a lot of focus on every new track will be finding a good gearing.

So, I really got a better and more positive feeling about the bike after these two days.

But now another of her "features" or "querks" has started to show it's ugly face...
We got a fair amount of oil leak coming from the front head cover gasked, the generator cover gasket, AND the clutch cover gasket... So three confirmed sources of oil leak... On an almost new $40.000 bike... Sub par if you ask me... So now the mechanics have a bit of work to do before the next outing in a couple of weeks...

Hey Macke - have you managed to do anything about that crappy throttle yet?

WAfatboy said:

Hey Macke - have you managed to do anything about that crappy throttle yet?

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Well... No...

But we found a guy that changes the table for the ride-by-wire in the ECU to get a 1:1 between Hand TPS and throttle TPS. But I really would like a shorter stroke aswell, and a harder spring in the throttle to get a bit more resistance... We're working on it...