Can someone explain camber?

[brambos]

Could someone please explain in layman's terms how camber works and how it typically affects braking, grip and cornering, and why front/rear are usually different?

 

[Terje]

You increase grip in cornering with some amount of camber, but if too much you decrease braking grip.

Abit too much to write, so please read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_angle

Edit: I usually set camber to F2,5/R1,5, depending on the car's performance. If it's a slower car, it doesn't need that much of an angle, but if it's a high performance car 2,5-3 degrees on the front is an advantage.

 

[dj-smurph]

Camber describes the angle the tyre leans in/out in relation to the engine. It can be used to improve the grip in corners by allowing more of the tyre to contact the road when cornering. But this is true to a point but it is a compromise toomuch camber and on the straights you will have less grip and more prone to spinning up, too little camber you will fly down the straights but show the car a corner and good chance it will be an adventure going round corners. Find a good handling car to start with and play with the settings on a track like TGTT a good mix of corners to get feedback and laptime from. Shame a datalogger isn't available because you can overlay traces and see where the changes make it better

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

There is a datalogger btw

 

[dj-smurph]

There is a datalogger btw

Where I haven't found it.

 

[TouringBubble]

Camber is the angle of the wheel as measured at the face of the spokes.

Most any race car (aside from oval track cars) will run negative camber ... the top of the wheel tipped toward the center of the car. This is due to suspension movement in corners.

Ideally, you want the tire tread on the loaded tire (outside) to be 100% flat on the asphalt in a given corner. With 0º camber the profile of the tire gives 100% contact when traveling straight, which is great for straight line grip. But, when the suspension is loaded to one side, that profile changes and normally moves the wheel in to a positive camber state. The is referred to as camber gain, or dynamic camber. So, you set the static (resting) camber to a negative value, so when it increases in a corner it ends up much closer to 0º.

On the other side of the car, the opposite is happening ... the camber is going more negative, meaning less grip on the inside wheel. But, grip on the outside is more important, so it's an accepted outcome.

Most cars run more negative camber on the front, as it carries more weight and has more suspension movement. It also makes the car turn, so camber is a big part of managing understeer.

FR cars will run a lot more negative camber up front ... upwards of -3º on a moderately tuned car in many cases ... and a moderate amount in the rear (~-1.2º) to maintain grip for acceleration. FF cars will run closer to equal amounts front and rear to keep more acceleration grip up front ... something like -1.8ºF and -1.4ºR, obviously depending on the car. AWD cars will run somewhere in the middle. I personally run -2.7ºF and -1.3ºR in my personal Evo for autocross events. I'm not too good with MR/RR settings, but I'd assume it would be similar to a FR setup, with maybe a little more negative camber in the rear and a little less in front ... perhaps -2.6ºF and -1.8ºR.

These examples are just starting points of course. Basically, if you have issues with understeer, try adding more negative camber up front and see how it reacts. If you're losing grip in the rear of a FR, try lowering the negative camber. And so on ...

 

[Highlandor]

Where I haven't found it.

I think it appears after you've done and saved a lap in free practice, but not sure as I haven't used free pactice yet!!

 

[Terje]

Where I haven't found it.

In replay after a Time Trial.

 

[dj-smurph]

In replay after a Time Trial.

Have had a gO on the time trials yet and had the game on release day.

 

[BigYoSpeck]

Could someone please explain in layman's terms how camber works and how it typically affects braking, grip and cornering, and why front/rear are usually different?

Camber works by making your car look awesome like it's in a cartoon and the wheels are just bursting out of the arches!! It works best if the car is so slammed that it actually looks like the car has been dropped out of a plane and snapped it's axles and shocks. Oh and you need a tyre stretch as well

On a serious note:

You would have front on a higher camber than rear because typically the rear either has the power running through it in RWD or at least a higher ratio than the front in 4WD so you want a cleaner contact with the road for laying down power otherwise you just shred the inside of the tyre. Also typically the rear tyres are wider than the front so a less aggressive camber would be needed to get comparable grip.

 

[brambos]

Thanks guys for the clear, helpful (and quick) answers! I think I'm going to dig into the datalogger tonight to experiment with different camber settings.

Cheers!

 

[Faria0808]

This is camber