Just a few quick comments. Milton, overall this is a great description.
I'd like to clear up just one item:
> Manufacturers again tend toward slight positive
>> camber to promote understeer.
This isn't quite correct. Manufacturers tend toward slight negative camber.
I've been involved in suspension design for over 10 years, and have done
work for several auto manufacturers, and a few tire manufacturers as well.
Most modern cars, trucks, and buses have some negative camber, or zero
camber. Camber affects turn-in and tire wear, and a lot of work is done to
try and optimize this tradeoff. You do see positive camber on older cars.
The Hummvee originally had some positive camber on the road version, I think
that's been redesigned. So there are a few exceptions.
My personal experiences with my street car:
Toe: 0 toe for street driving, a little toe out for auto-x
Camber: about -1.5 degrees seem to be a decent balance been cornering
performance and tire wear, with more emphasis on cornering. Any more, and
the car start to feel "darty" up front.
I use just a little bit of toe-in on the race car for stability under
braking. Camber was set at around 2.25 degrees, this was arrived on after a
few discussions with my Avon tire engineer, and lot's of track testing which
included measuring tire temps.
Happy Roadstering
--
Chris Coker
69 1600 SPL311 <http://mywebpages.comcast.net/chriscoker/roadster.html>
66 1600 GP Race Car <http://mywebpages.comcast.net/datsunracer/racecar.html>
Royal Oak, MI
/// datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net mailing list
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|