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Caterham front camber
nick205 - 2/1/09 at 10:04 PM

Just re-watched the R500 Top Gear lap and can't help noticing what looks like a lot of negative camber on the front wheels. I've noticed this on some other videos and photos of Caterhams, so assume it's not a special set-up for the TG lap.

Can anyone comment on why so much camber is used when we typically talk on here of around 0.5-1.0 deg?


mookaloid - 2/1/09 at 10:34 PM

I would say that the harder you drive the car, the more radical the set up needs to be.

If you only drive on the road then you aren't going to reach the cornering speeds that the Stig did.

The faster the cornering the more body roll and the more likely it is that you will need more -ve camber so that the tyre stays upright (maximum grip) on the limit.

It all varies according to the geometry of the particular car

Cheers

M


prawnabie - 2/1/09 at 11:09 PM

You mean there was a front end on that car??????


Z350 - 3/1/09 at 11:09 AM

If pushing on on track on road legal sticky tyres then somewhere around 2 deg neg more if running sprint soft slicks.


sebastiaan - 4/1/09 at 10:55 AM

I've got -1,5 rear and -3 front camber on mine. I know it is a bit much, but the car is beautifully balanced that way.

Mine's an indy by the way.


flak monkey - 4/1/09 at 11:12 AM

I run quite a lot on mine, somewhere around 2.5deg which is quite close to the caterham setup.

Its more than most people seem to be running, but I found it the best for my style of driving...

David


procomp - 5/1/09 at 09:17 AM

Hi

The reason they run quite a lot of camber is due to the lack of roll they have. So they need the camber on in static for it to have a better footprint during cornering.

However with many seven type cars the geometry is less than ideal and many of them posses geometry that actualy decreases camber during cornering and roll. So need high static camber to be any where near right during cornering. The camber can be used also to try and over come other issues with the handling so depending on what car what driver style and what tyre theres many different combinations of front camber and toe settings to get desirable handling.

Cheers Matt


mawmaw - 5/1/09 at 06:10 PM

check your tyre temperatures across the tread after 20 mins of track time if they are even across the tread then you are about right! imho the least you can get away with and still have competitive times the better cos that way the car is stable under braking, lots of camber means they are a bitch under heavy braking, also with cross ply tyres you cannot run much camber, mine runs 1.5 which seems about right on the front of a sylva thingie on radials