Camber

[Sandsational]

What is the pros and cons of camber in the sand?

[borris]

OMG! that really opens a can of worms! Many people feel that camber adds to a cars ability to remain stable at higher speeds and aids in traction by keeping the tire at a more nearly90 degrees to the surface of the road when turning.There's a lot of opinions on both sides of this that's for sure.

[Bugpac]

In dirt its gonna give you a far better footprint to corner etc, so the tire isnt rolling up on its side, I would think the same would go for sand...

[VLADD]

I guess I'll muddy the waters quick here,
Posative camber leans the tire in on top...Negative camber leans the tire out on top, like the old narrow front tractors, All left hand race cars run more posative camber on the right front to compensate for track banking and tire sidewall flex iIt works the same In the sand and the dirt,I still build a dirt oval micro mini, I have negative camber on the left front and a bunch of posative camber on the right front, this gives the cars an advantage on 2 planes footprint, and more contact patch in the turns...
Now this may be off base for this thread but there are other factors in the steering geometry...RAKE,CASTOR,KPI,and ACKERMAN ANGLE

[SPEC]

I'm with Vladd on this one, there are ALOT of factors, that go into front end set up and whether or not the car will turn worth a crap or not, or how well it absorb impact (bumps,rocks,tree stumps,etc...)

[lee1969GB]

I guess I'll muddy the waters quick here,
Posative camber leans the tire in on top...Negative camber leans the tire out on top,

Thats what I thought but some say its the other way around??

[fisherman]

I would say in sand maybe 2 deg. of neg. camber at full comp. On dirt this all depends on the travel of the car and the stiffness of the tire wall.

[Nutz4sand]

I guess I'll muddy the waters quick here,
Posative camber leans the tire in on top...Negative camber leans the tire out on top, like the old narrow front tractors, All left hand race cars run more posative camber on the right front to compensate for track banking and tire sidewall flex iIt works the same In the sand and the dirt,I still build a dirt oval micro mini, I have negative camber on the left front and a bunch of posative camber on the right front, this gives the cars an advantage on 2 planes footprint, and more contact patch in the turns...
Now this may be off base for this thread but there are other factors in the steering geometry...RAKE,CASTOR,KPI,and ACKERMAN ANGLE

Yah gotter backwards. Positive camber leans OUTWARD at the top. Negative leans in at the top.   

[VLADD]

Nutz,
Your right , my bad  Can't remember what I was thinking...Too much info and too small of a head I guess

[Nutz4sand]

You don't need to feel a bit bad. The only reason I can even remember it is I have a sticky note on my puter and in my garage for referance at a glance. I have both +/-camber and +/-castor depicted on it.  Otherwise I am lost in da dark.  :P

[borris]

You don't need to feel a bit bad. The only reason I can even remember it is I have a sticky note on my puter and in my garage for referance at a glance. I have both +/-camber and +/-castor depicted on it.  Otherwise I am lost in da dark.  :P

I'm pretty sure we all have a hard time keeping it straight! All you really have to remember is -----in and back at the top. Opposite of that SUX!

[VLADD]

What Borris said

[Engineer]

I have a camber question.   I am going to use 21" travel to simplify the numbers.  At ride height, I am going to assume this is 7" down into the travel (1/3), I am planning for 0 deg camber.  Now I have heard the number 7 degrees total camber bantered about.  When I look at the suspension travel, If a hard turn is being made that causes the car to lean, I really doubt that this lean will ever result in full compression of the outside front/rear suspensions.  I am going to guess that the camber is going to be needed somewhere between ride height and 2/3 suspension compression (14 inches).

I am trying to maximize the camber movement in this range (ride height to 2/3 compression) with out having the camber get stupid at full compression, or full droop.  The best way to do this is with unequal length, non-parallel A-arms.  However it starts getting ugly, and bumpsteer gets hard to control.

The truth is on a 4-6" travel suspension, I believe that camber curves can be quite affective.  However in the 20" travel range I don't know how much useable camber gain you can expect. 

Also on most of the long travel cars I see, I don't see many non-parallel arms, even though most are unequal length, giving some camber rise.

If anyone has any insight, it would be appreciated.

[fabr]

LT buggies that have well setup suspensions will often see full or very near full compression.Not in turns but in whoops and jumps or just plain old severe transitions.Soooo, the need is for the camber gain to be over the entire travel.Not optimum for corners but with LT you can't have it all. Yes the geometry gets very ugly at times.

[Admin]

Get it right and get 0 at ride height and camber gain in droop and bump travel....It is possible, Don't doubt me!! 5 degrees is plenty IMO...