Tire Question; Lower pitch noise an indicative of better grip?

[jasonaries]

My Cooper Touring tires tend to "bark" when I shift lock or jack rabbit start. My Michellin MX4's tend to "screach" in the same circumstances. Is the lower pitch noise from the Coopers indicative of better grip?

[Tuner]

Is the tread depth the same?

[jasonaries]

Both sets are new, so, within reason, yes, they are the same tread depth. The MX4's maybe have 3000 miles on them, the Coopers 2300.

[Drift For Food]

I think it's more of an indicator of compound hardness. A harder tire will scretch more while a softer compound will scretch with a much lower tone, The Michelins are a pretty hard compound. I too had some MX4's I went to a much softer compound moving to a set of Firestone Indy 500's. I gained a ton of grip and lost a lot of squeel. Any squeeling it did was at a much lower frequency.

I guess you could look at pitch and grip as similar if you just go by compound hardness as harder means less grip but more life and softer means more grip and less life. The scretch is just the tires vibration frequency. A softer compound vibrates slower than a harder one.

Compound isn't everything though. Tread pattern is also a large factor. This is increasingly important on surfaces other than asphalt, say gravel, dirt, snow, etc... The pattern used can give it very unique driving characteristics like wet traction, off-road traction, tire noise, tire life, handling feel, ride comfort, etc... Some of this is aslo in the build of the tire like sidewall stiffness in relation to handling feel and ride comfort.

[GRiDRaceTech]

I agree with DFF. The softer the compound, the lower-pitched the squeal. My old BFGs were quite the hard compound and squealed like crazy, same with my Firestone Firehawks and Escort Touring A/S. The Dunlop SP9000s on my dad's M3 got hard and started squealing like crazy too. Oh, and the Kumho Ecsta Supra 712s on the M3 now... they squeal. The Falken Azenis Sports on the e30 didn't even squeal. They made a kind of wooshing sound... I prefered it, really. When I'd accelerate across an intersection hard, the inside wheel would vaporize rubber and just spin up to 6k rpm wooshing all the time... no squealing, just wooshing.

[jasonaries]

Okay. That makes sense. You input will help me decide which tires to use on the track in October.