I was watching the Goodwood Hillclimb and the postive camber on the really old race cars was incredible. What was the reasoning for that? To better follow the rutted roads of the time?
I was watching the Goodwood Hillclimb and the postive camber on the really old race cars was incredible. What was the reasoning for that? To better follow the rutted roads of the time?
Tire sidewalls taller than section width. If you roll it over and drive on the sidewalls you gain traction.
I've been told it's to load the inner wheel bearing & aid low speed steering on cars that already had very heavy steering. The suspension is such that the camber goes to zero when cornering. King pin inclination factors in as well. I put the emphasis on I've been told, I've talked to a few drivers of these older cars over the years so I'm going by what they told me. The folks at Blockley Tires would probably know the theory behind it.
Scrub radius?
In reply to noddaz :
It's to reduce the scrub radius. With king pin steering it would cause likely uncontrollable bump-steer with the manual steering of the day if scrub radius wasn't corrected.
Remember we call that direction "positive" because it is a good thing. Or was, when the terminology was invented.
Positive camber is better for bearing loads, makes it easier to get zero scrub radius (Subaru's schtick in the pre-Legacy days, too!), and is probably more friendly to wire wheels.
Also, in those days before suspension geometry was well understood, it made for safer handling.
But mostly because of the bearings. That's why you see it on horse drawn vehicles from before automobiles, too.
From my understanding they actually knew that they were reducing their front grip back then, but they had to strike a balance between grip and steering effort...the grip was only as useful as your ability to direct it.
Thank you. Now I know.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
thats a fascinating theory
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