Airing down (no headlocks)

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

fftfk

Full Access Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2020
Posts
100
Reaction score
80
Location
Chicago
On a previous truck I’ve aired down to 15 psi with no problems. I’m doing my first off-reading trip in the Raptor next weekend and was wondering this question. Thanks for the link.
 

AnacortesTom

Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2019
Posts
34
Reaction score
84
Location
Anacortes wa
Don’t go less then 12 psi unless you really need to, and don’t plan on loading those side walls through donuts etc or you will roll a bead. Sum it up with no bead lock I try not to go lower then 8psi to get me out, and 12-24 depending on speed, terrain and distance. Just my 2 cents of 30 years off road. Letting air out you lose clearance, but gotta love the ride and traction you get from it!
 

jzweedyk

FRF Addict
Joined
Jun 30, 2018
Posts
2,326
Reaction score
4,588
Location
Moab/Winter Travel/Summer Travel
In my opinion, mud, sand, snow or rock crawling it doesn't matter. The reason you air down is to increase the contact patch of the tire. Take it to the extreme, would you put bicycle (skinny) tires on your raptor and go out in the mud/snow/sand? So an increased tire patch is better for getting grip on all surfaces. If you look at the curve of pressure and patch size, it really doesn't change too much until you get quite low. So going down to 29 is better than 38, but not by much.

12 - 15 psi without bead locks is fine unless you are going to go really fast or try to do donuts at speed.
 

RotorHead695

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2019
Posts
386
Reaction score
294
Location
Molalla, OR
I air down to about 20 psi when I'm doing it for comfort over rocks and NOT doing high speed stuff. I found myself stuck on a road with no way to turn around. I was going over wet boulders that I wouldn't have made it over without the increased surface area. I also ended up in about 6-8 inches of mud when the high desert moon dust turned to sludge. It performed very well at 20 psi and I stayed under 50 mph.
 

zombiekiller

OG BooBooRunner
Joined
Sep 24, 2017
Posts
2,793
Reaction score
3,843
Location
New Orleans
I think those pressures are quite a bit high. i personally think that 32 psi cold is WAY too high for offroad. The difference between 28 Psi and 25 Psi is REALLY noticeable ( to me).

The difference between 32 and 25 is light-years.

Set the tires to 25 psi and go for it. You're going to probably see an increase of 3 psi when the tires are warmed up. ( yes, this means that you're at 35Psi if you're setting your tires to 32 when they're cold. )

I've run 20 psi cold for thousands of miles at a time with no ill effects. ( General grabber x3 37s)

I've been running 25 psi on my KR3s since I put them on the truck.

I am getting ready to switch to a new wheel. I'm finally going to bead locks. ( yay sponsor money!)

This time I'll be going with a wider wheel and will probably set my pressures at 20 psi cold. If I find that going lower provides an advantage, I'll do that too.
 
Top