Camber
Camber is the angle of the wheels in relation to the ground if you look from the front of the car. The tire's relationship with the road changes as the suspension moves through its travel.
Ideally, you want a camber curve that keeps the tire straight up and down when you are driving straight, and leans the tire in slightly (1 to 2 degrees of negative camber) during cornering.
So, a neutral camber will be |-| (while looking at the car from the front),
A Negative Camber will be /-\ ,
And a Positive camber will be \-/ .
(TOP LEFT) Positive camber: The bottoms of the wheels are closer together than the tops.
(TOP RIGHT) Negative camber: The tops of the wheels are closer together than the bottoms.
(CENTER) When a suspension does not gain camber during deflection, this causes a severe positive camber condition when the car leans during cornering. This can cause funky handling.
(BOTTOM) Fight the funk: A suspension that gains camber during deflection will compensate for body roll. Tuning dynamic camber angles is one of the black arts of suspension tuning.
Camber allows the weight of the car lean on the outer, more loaded tires, providing additional contact in a corner. However, on level ground and straights, the more camber you have the less contact surface area the tire has to the road.
A negative camber in the front tires is always recommended, and in most situations the front camber value should be higher than the rear. Rear camber should be as
close to Zero or neutral as much as possible, providing as much grip to the rear as possible. Unless you are tuning to reduce oversteer, then a little negative camber is OK.
On oval tracks (US type of racing), the inner wheels will need positive camber and the outer wheels will need negative camber to counter the angle of the track (if you remember, it was a lot of talk about that before first US GP in Indianapolis because of last, banked corner). Using camber to reduce oversteer and understeer should be treated as a secondary option to adjusting springs and shocks or wings first. Unless you are intentionally tuning for a drift car. Using more camber than necessary is not advisable and will result in reduced grip on flat straights and increase tire overheating and wear. Tire is overheated in contact area, and to cold in the rest of tire surface. This situation can cause a blistering of the tires.
Camber intake is the measure of how much the camber angle changes as the suspension is compressed. This is determined by the length and angle between the top and bottom suspension arms (or turnbuckles). If the top and bottom suspension arms are parallel, camber will not change as the suspension is compressed. If the
angle between the arms is considerable, the camber will increase as the suspension is compressed.
A certain amount of camber intake is desirable to maintain the face of the wheel
parallel to the ground as the car rolls into a corner.
Note: the suspension arms should be either parallel or closer to each other on the inside
(car side) than on the wheel side. Having suspension arms that are closer to each other at the wheel side than at the car, will result in camber angles that vary radically (and a car that behaves erratically).
Camber intake will define how the roll-center of your race car behaves. The roll center of your car will in turn determine how weight will be transferred when cornering and this will have an important effect on handling.
What to take care when you do it yourself on your street car
Lowering your car can cause your vehicles negative camber to increase. What
happens when you drop your car it causes your tires to lean inward and this is what
is causing your wheels to wear down irregularly if you don't take measures to fix the problem. Camber kits are necessary to correct the misalignment caused by the installation of the new springs and are also highly recommended if you are upgrading your stock wheels and tires to aftermarket ones to prevent any future problems with tire wear and alignment.
When a car leaves the manufacturer's factory camber is set according to oem part specs and long testing, so when you do lower your car or add a new set of rims to it you risk the chance of throwing off camber.
By adjusting negative camber you will improve the way your car handles on the road.
On the other hand, an outward tilt is referred to as postive camber. An adjustment of this sort will give you less tire wear and easier handling.
Lastly, to correct the problem you will need to make note of the following:
Car lowered 2,5 cm = -0.75 degrees of camber
Car lowered 5 cm = -1.50 degrees of camber
Car lowered 7,5 cm = -2.50 degrees of camber
