UNDERSTANDING CAMBER, another laymens attempt at an explanation Options

[The Cow]

Understanding camber and what it can do for your r/c... in basic terms.

Rather then make adjustment recommendations for different conditions my hope here is to explain how to come to your own decisions on the correct adjustments for different conditions and desired effects!! Camber is one of the many suspension adjustments I will try to address as time allows… I seem to have had a good response to some of my explanations and this is my first attempt at explaining something this detailed so please offer any comments or suggestions that may be used next time to make something similar easier to understand Don’t hesitate to ask questions if I am not totally clear as I know I have a habit of talking Chinese

I hope this may help!

Heath

Prior to understanding Camber and seeing the effects of a properly adjusted vehicle I fell victim to an improperly adjusted r/c on more then one occasion that I was quick to dismiss as a P.O.S…. It really is amazing the difference in performance and ability a properly adjusted vehicle will display no matter if you are a racer or like myself a parking lot basher. Even the most well thought out vehicle with the best parts list simply will not compare to a properly tuned stocker if it is not properly adjusted. Some of you may be thinking well I need to go out and invest big dollars on specialized tools and a hudy setup but this really is not the case. If you are a serious racer I am sure it may be necessary to have an edge, but for us pavement pounders it simply is not the case….. All it takes is a good understanding, a sharp eye (in most cases this is sufficient), and the patience to make small adjustments one at a time. It really is easy if prepared with the right knowledge and a little patience for trial and error
While many of us may know this, I will try to explain this in basic terms for those that don’t . Camber is a way to reference the outside or inside vertical angle of your wheels in relation to the ground. 0 camber implies this imaginary straight outside wheel line is 90 degrees from an imaginary straight level horizontal ground line …. Another, simpler way to think of camber is how near or far the top inner edge of your tire sits in reference to the center line of the chassis. The closer this inside edge sits to the center line of your chassis the more “negative” camber you will have…… Respectively the further this edge sits from the center line, the more “positive” camber you will have.

Let’s imagine your wheels have a square edge…. This will help to picture what negative or positive camber implies as well as what it translates to in performance on the road.

When you have negative camber the inner most edge of the tire will have more contact-traction then the outer edge with the ground and when you have positive camber the outer most edge of the tire will have more contact-traction then the inner edge on the ground. Keeping these things in mind it is easy to see how an improperly adjusted camber in effect can widen or shorten you cars track width, Effect major contact points, as well as influence the likely hood of your car to roll or slide as the g forces build in a turn ….. This can have many desirable and undesirable effects as you can imagine. Why not use it to your advantage!
Now if we take this a little further and understand as our car is moving in any direction its weight wants to continue in that direction……this explains the push you will experience when entering a turn and the direct correlation of the amount of push in relation to both speed and traction. When moving in a forward direction and making a left turn your right front tire will experience push against the outside tire edge and visa versa. If you understand camber you can use this awareness to adjust the vehicle to your driving ability and ground conditions to get the most performance-control of your RC that is possible. Now consider entering a turn at considerable speed and you are experiencing a large amount of push…. Assuming traction levels are the same the more negative camber you have the more your r/c will tend to slide or be forgiving since the outside edge is harder to !!!traction lock with the ground, the cleaner-grippy the surface the more negative camber you will need to avoid the car from rolling over itself in turns while the opposite is true as positive camber increases. It is also important to consider the direct correlation there is between camber and traction… for instance the more traction you have the more negative camber that will be needed to avoid rolling, push, or traction lock. In essence you are decreasing your contact patch in either pos or neg camber, both on the outside and inside of your tire respectively. You must remember when going straight this will also effect you ability to “hook up” when hitting the gas or accelerating hard so it is important to find the best of both world in effect… a good compromise between the two that is capable of complimenting your driving styles. If you have 2 equally successful, yet equally different styled racers you will notice even when running on the same track they will have drastically different adjustments. Yes there is a general rule as in “cause and effect” and I hope I am communicating this but this is why it is so important to adjust these in reference to your own ability or style of driving, not someone else’s. This can take you from adequate to dominant!!!
At first you will want to adjust your front and rears the same. I say this because this will make it easiest to learn the cause and effect relationship here as you make adjustments. By all means once you have a feel and understanding for this, adjust your front and rears separately. Ideally this is necessary and at this level of adjustment can have some downright amazing effects on the performance of your r/c. For those of us with out hudy tools and relying on our eye or feel of our vehicle’s performance to make adjustments I cannot stress the importance of our starting point before even making any adjustments.. In order to ensure ease of adjustment you must start with a theoretical 90 degree angle in relation to you wheel side wall to the bottom tire line. This will ease in adjustment of linkage as you can keep count of linkage rotations while adjusting to reference to corresponding linkages.
It is also important to remember the more negative or positive camber you have the more inner or outer tire wear you will experience. Also keep in mind when running foams especially low shore rated tires the more negative or positive camber you have the more chunking your tires will suffer from on the inner or outer rim line respectively. If you are a basher on a budget 000 camber is always the best compromise and longest safes answer for your wallet!!!

If I have left out anything in reference to understanding camber please feel free to add in guys!!!

ADDED PIONTS BELOW!!!

After letting this sit for the day and night I realize there are many things I have not covered that are important to understand when thinking and considering proper camber adjustments, especially as you understanding of camber increases you will want to consider the following additions….
It is important to keep in mind that if we are to raise or lower the ride height of our veh we will effect our previously tuned camber adjustments…. it is important to keep this in mind when making alterations to our ride height as this will directly impact our veh performance in a negative way if we do not readjust camber to our new height. We must also consider the fact that when under speed out veh is riding lower then it does sitting still due to aerodynamic forces so again we are essentially lowering our ride height when at speed. Since our r/c is usually in motion and closer to top speed then a roll it is important to make adjustments with this in mind.
Another equally important aspect of suspension action that will effect your camber adjustments is body roll… The more body roll your vehicle suffers from the more you effectively negate your negative camber adjustments. For instance as you enter a high speed left turn your body rolls to the right and at a certain point you will return to 0 camber and then positive….. This is normally the point the vehicle will begin to roll. Once you enter positive camber in a turn your outer tire edge will have traction lock and cause the opposite side of the RC to lift! Obviously this is not good. This is why it is important to keep body roll to the absolute minimum necessary for your running conditions… Body rolls really only serves a purpose in RC when you are using it to avoid vehicle roll when all other adjustments are made to their best ability…
While I did mention negative camber effect on our ability to slide rather then roll in turns it is important for me to elaborate here…. Camber adjustments will alter the handling characteristics of your RC significantly…. If we are to consider other points then the push or roll, such as steering we will have many more ways to use this adjustment to our advantage! In general negative camber will provide more traction in cornering assuming we do not accelerate past our contact patches ability to maintain traction. In other words negative camber brings you more over steer in comparison to your starting point. The reason for this is due to the increase in contact patch as our suspension is compressed! This can be very useful when adjusted to your driving style to help pull your vehicle into a turn! The reason for this is as your veh leans into the oncoming turn; due to the new position of your suspension you are effectively increasing your contact patch there fore the increased traction causes the veh to slide less or loose less steering ability. If you are someone that runs on tracks with little straight-aways or a basher that is constantly turning through your runs then you will want more negative camber them someone who like to make speed runs up and down the block.
If we were to put cambers effects in general terms we need to consider the surface we are running… In general more negative camber will aid or increase handing in on road-high grip situations while in general more positive camber will aid or increase handling in off road-low grip conditions please keep in mind I say this referring to the direction in which you are adjusting not the actual wheel position…. I.E. you would rarely if ever actually be adjusted in positive camber…. Even on the most slippery of surfaces you would never be in positive camber!

[The Cow]

Shameless bump .... in hope for feedback

Now that i have let this sit for the night i realize there is alot of information i have neglected to include or overlooked that i could certainly elaborate on. Let me know if there is a demand for it and i will edit and add to this when i get back to my hotel for the evening! going to be stuck in buffalo untill monday morning so a few beers and homework might keep me out of trouble tonight, lol

Heath

[lesclaypool]

No shame in the bump - another good techy read, bud! Great job, and keep 'em coming!

[Squirrel]

I missed this one!

Great info! Moved to the higher ground!

[Mamba Max]

Have you read the RC setup guide I posted? Basically a 1:1 and scale race setup guide.

http://forums.thetoyz.com/index.php?showtopic=5422&hl=

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[The Cow]

Have you read the RC setup guide I posted? Basically a 1:1 and scale race setup guide.

http://forums.thetoyz.com/index.php?showtopic=5422&hl=

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I hope to attack understanding the many pionts to tuning your r/c in depth as time allows and as people familiarize and form there own understanding of this very entailed yet useful tool(tunning) your post will make a great flash-card Q&a of sorts once guys can see the symptoms as well as thier desired direction in comparision to their driving ability!!! Thats an awesome go to guide of information you put together my friend!

Heath

[Squirrel]

Hey Maxx!

I missed it but a great thread as well!

[Mamba Max]

I hope to attack understanding the many pionts to tuning your r/c in depth as time allows and as people familiarize and form there own understanding of this very entailed yet useful tool(tunning) your post will make a great flash-card Q&a of sorts once guys can see the symptoms as well as thier desired direction in comparision to their driving ability!!! Thats an awesome go to guide of information you put together my friend!

Heath

I was not suggesting it in any was as a guide in lieu of your postings, I just wanted to make sure everyone has seen it because it is a serious racers table of contents of issues and how to address them. Your information is much more in depth but I hope my guide helps too!

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[The Cow]

I was not suggesting it in any was as a guide in lieu of your postings, I just wanted to make sure everyone has seen it because it is a serious racers table of contents of issues and how to address them. Your information is much more in depth but I hope my guide helps too!

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Hey Max.... My friend.... Maybe you misunderstood my comment? i did not take it that way at all i was just saying when combined they make a great pair as a single resource!!! As i requested in the original post i would like everyone to contribute if they have something, after all that is what the forum is for.... To exchange and Share information so we can all find "our" way!!!

I always look foward and appreciate your educated way of looking at things! if it sounded that way i did not mean it that way!

Still friends i hope.....

Heath

[The Cow]

I added a few more paragraphs of nonsence in the original post!!! ^^^^^see above^^^^^^ I hope it is more complete now

enjoy

Heath

[RH Motorsports]

Great write up this will help racers alot.