For those who don't know (Many of you do I'm sure), camber is one of the most important aspects of traction in a turbo'ed (or modded for that matter) FWD.

I will try to explain why this is so with some visuals that I've found on the net. Many of you guys (probubly when you first started in Hondas) put some 17's on your civic and lowered it 3"s (Hehe). Soon after driving around for a couple of weeks, you started to notice that the inside of the tire started to wear at an incredible rate while the rest of the tire doesn't even really show any signs of wear. This is because of massive camber problems caused by lowering the car.

What does this mean for traction?

When you lower the car far beyond the stock ride height without camber correction, you cause the car to put most of its weight on just a small 2" or so patch of the tire. However, at a camber of 0 degrees, you are spreading the cars weight accross the entire width of the tire, effectivly maximizing traction.

Sorry about the crappy images, but I think they get the message accross.





Camber is especially important, when it comes to low profile tires. The smaller the profile, the less patch the car will be riding on, caused by less sidewall flex compared to a larger profile.

As you can kinda see from this visual, it doesn't take much negative camber to take away a lot of contact patch on the tire. With that being said, you would think that a camber of 0 degrees would be perfect for traction right? However, that is only true if the car has equal upper and lower A arms (same camber no matter what during the suspension travel). Most street cars will have a increasing negative camber as the car is lowered, caused by a Shorter top A arm.



It is in my opinion, that the ideal camber rating for a street car, or a street/drag car is around -.5 to -.75 degrees. As the car accelerates it will shift its weight towards the back causing the front end to lift ever so slightly...effectively getting closer to 0 degrees camber. It is also to keep in mind that in most street cars Handiling is also important( ). Having a slightly negative camber will give a nice responding, and grippy car in the twistys.

Also don't forget that caster, and toe are equally important when it comes to proper suspension tuning for traction.

I have noticed many people complaining of traction problems on here, while no one seems to mention camber...

Feel free to contribute with any more information

Thanks
Bryson


Modified by Bryson at 6:24 PM 12/20/2003

 

Very informative post. Thats why its a good idea to purchase a camber kit and have your car aligned with a set of slicks or drag radials on it.

EVIL

 

id say most of the time people around here, their camber is "within spec"

 

I've always raised my car up at the track. Alot of people forget though that being slammed y0 on drag radials means nothing when your basicly running a 155 series contact patch.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SiRkid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">id say most of the time people around here, their camber is "within spec"</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm sure thats true...but then again like I stated in the post, it doesn't take much at all to reduce the contact patch quite considerably.

I had a camber of about -1 with my CRX and my T-25 setup. I couldn't get any traction in 1st and into 2nd. I then Got some new upper A arms with a camber kit...set it to about -.5, and I had tons of traction! 1st would only be a problem if I completely dumped the clutch.

 

Camber is definitely a problem with traction, but there is one thing I don't like about that post up there. It mentions camber as the cause of uneven wear when you lower your car when, in reality, the camber doesn't cause uneven tire wear NEARLY as fast as the toe out that is caused when you lower your car.

 

Very nice and informative post

Remember to keep an eye on your toe angle as well. My brand new tires wore to the metal in two and a half weeks because of this.

 

awesome post! cleared up a lot of stuff i had in mind...

btw how do you adjust the caster?? my alignment shop said it's not adjustable???

 

Uuuug....

Did you guys even read the entire post?

I did mention at the bottom that caster, and toe is also very important.

HOWEVER...I thought I would keep this post tied to the topic of CAMBER...and TRACTION.

 

dont forget when you launch, or accelerate hard with alot of power, the cars weight shifts back, and changes the position of the front suspension..

I think the best setup is to jack the front up an inch or two, and then zero it out.. that way you get the most grip under acceleration, or perhaps launch, depending on how you set it up.

 

even with wrinkle slicks is camber that big of a deal

 

Camber is less of an issue with tires that have a large sidewall (such as slicks) but non-the less its still important.

When it comes to acceleration, and launching, would you rather have the vehicle resting on just a part of contact patch, or the full width of the tire?

It might look like the entire tire is touching the ground with some negative camber, but because the wheel is angled, there is much more weight on the inside sidewall of the tire.

 

Ive run 2.5 degrees of Negative Camber with no bad affects of tire wear. I would align my car every couple months and made sure the toe was correct. Good thing I work at a honda dealer. haha

 

I have a hard time agreeing with camber wearing tires.
I have had my car dropped for over 2 yrs with quite a bit of - camber and my tires last just like they should
Car was set with the toe zero'd out, which IMO is what wears tires not camber
not disagreeing with your theory for racing though

 

slight negative camber will increase traction, because the weight tries to shift to the rear, lifting the front end, changing the suspension, changing the camber..

the ideal setting is to figure out how much the front end lifts up when you launch, then jack the car up that amount and zero out the alignment...

that way when you accelerate, you have the optimal contact patch..

Then you can get into coilover suspension and raising up the rear suspension to put the weight focus on the front tires further increasing traction..

Brad

 

word..toe is what wears your tires..not camber.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SiRkid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">word..toe is what wears your tires..not camber.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Camber does not wear tires anywhere near as fast as toe does. The reason why ppl think that is because usually when you lower a car, as camber increases so does the toe. And your tires will wear out very soon. You cant see toe but you can see camber so they blame the camber. But an alignment can set toe to 0.

My wheels have 2.2* of camber and 0 toe, my tires dont prematurely wear out.

However I do agree that camber will decrease your straight line traction.


Modified by Muckman at 12:41 PM 12/21/2003

 

yes, to a point
some people like to turn too

 

good post

 

what surprises me is cant you just tell you have less contact patch for launching just by looking at your car? the tire is freaking tilted for cripes sake.

its obvious the tire will wear out on the inside with aggressive camber. its the only thing thats touching isnt it? well not necessarily. tire size, tire pressures, tire design, driving style, and ya toe/caster setting may make one person's tire wear seem even while another's is obviously worn on the inside. not to mention 4wheel alignment (thrust angle) and tire rotation.

&lt;--gets annoyed when people tell others to "drop it and its good!" and/or "we dont need no stinking camber kit!" w/o informing them properly. just like the pigs say, improper ricer mods risk yourself and others on the road- like ME.

 

Ive always made sure my tires were in alignment and that my camber was within spec. I think you are right, alot of people overlook the importance of this. Good post bryson.

 

great post' - if ya drop your car, fix that camber' otherwise, you'll be going through tires like crazy... totally not worth driving with bad camber..

looks horrible too.. ugh

 

how are all these people saying that camber doesnt wear your tires, camber and toe both will wear ur tires unevenly. Caster is the only non tire wearing angle (but there are extreme cases but other factors come into play then). Think about it, if your only riding on part of your tires b/c of you camber being out of spec, the only part of the tire that's being worn is the part the touching the ground, hence it will wear unevenly. Just b/c some of you guys say IMO i think toe wears out tires and not camber, doesnt mean its true. I have plenty of info i can scan and post up if anyone is interested.

 

most of th etime with what people lower their cars with it WONT cause the camber to wear , it will be the TOE unless you get an alignment.
now of course there is alway exceptions to this cause some people will slam the hell out of their car.

 

awesome post man! very informative...helped me understand a lot more about suspension set-ups and how to get better traction in a more different way