Ran 48psi front and 42 psi rear today, with a full tank of fuel. Car was much more neutral with less of tendancy to push. Next week I'm going to try an even bigger split.
Here's the theory behind my pressures. A tire's pressure works along the same lines as a shock absorber. A firmer shock at the front would allow less weight transfer. A firmer tire does essentially the same thing. When the Contour is pushing it's because the front tires are being asked to re-vector too much inertia (ie. too much weight is being transfered to the front). In a car with already poor weight distribution you need to keep as much of the weight to the rear as you can. This is also why I chose to run with a full tank of fuel. Picture a Porsche 911. They are tailhappy (loose) because of the inertia all that weight in the back carries when you try to transition it into a corner. Sure lowering tire pressure works when you're looking for straight line traction on the drag strip or in the snow with a rear drive car. It allows more weight transfer! But when the problem is too much weight tranfer (braking and turning on the autocross course) more pressure (to a point) will help the car turn.
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Chris
2000 SVT
