It's a common knowledge that correct camber angle is a key factor in a car balance and handling. I strongly believe that make all four tyres work well is the "easiest" way to extract performance out of the car, but wheel alignment is a very delicate topic. This subject has been discussed many times here, in the form of "what's the optimal camber for X/Y car?" "max camber has max grip?". Sorry, but not this time. I'm trying to figure out what's the correct critical thinking to apply in building car setups regarding camber angles.
I was building a setup for the Audi R8 GT3 ahead of a 3h race of the this past weekend, fine tuning the car's balance and everything, camber included. I started with the usual "temperature spread" in the garage page reading, but then I realized I didn't know how much temp difference I was looking between the inner and the outer part of the tyre surface: 10C? 15C? How much is good and how much it's not?
Then I started thinking about tyre workloads in cornering and came up with this: as the car start cornering, the tyres give the lateral force needed and keep the vehicle in a given trajectory. The force and the slip angles lead to a temperature build up on the tyre surface. The bigger the surface involved, the lesser temperature rise after the cornering phase has ended: this can improve tyre wear and degradation.
Then if these arguments make sense, we check the temperatures into the usual OMI zones (Outer Middle Inner): a correct camber angle on a given turn should teoretically build up the same amount of heat in all three segments. By logging the telemetry data, I compared the increase in temperature in the OMI zones between: straight, braking and cornering.
The two data points are with "high camber" (-4.8 -3.8) and "low camber" (-3.5 -3.0) for the left tyres only.
With the "high camber" setup, comparing before and after cornering, the temperature of the inner part of the front tyre increases by 18.1C, against the 14.4C of the outer: it's 3.7C more on the front inner surface. Similar situation at the rear with a temperature difference of 3.1C. I want to remind one more time that I'm not referring to the absolute temperature of the tyre surface, but the temperature increase before and after cornering.
With the "low camber" setup, the temperature build up at the front tyre is 2C more on the inner surface than the outer.
If I don't consider outer temperature build up, then I can't tell the difference between the two camber configs, as the heat is evenly spreaded on the inner and middle part of the tyre surface. I can't get to a useful point here, I feel stuck in a dead end and I still can't get a clear idea of this situation. Is this a correct approach on the subject? The car felt fine in both configurations, the laptimes were identical, and as you can see from the data, the absolute temperatures of the tyres surface are exactly the same, just spreaded differently. Any help on this?
I was building a setup for the Audi R8 GT3 ahead of a 3h race of the this past weekend, fine tuning the car's balance and everything, camber included. I started with the usual "temperature spread" in the garage page reading, but then I realized I didn't know how much temp difference I was looking between the inner and the outer part of the tyre surface: 10C? 15C? How much is good and how much it's not?
Then I started thinking about tyre workloads in cornering and came up with this: as the car start cornering, the tyres give the lateral force needed and keep the vehicle in a given trajectory. The force and the slip angles lead to a temperature build up on the tyre surface. The bigger the surface involved, the lesser temperature rise after the cornering phase has ended: this can improve tyre wear and degradation.
Then if these arguments make sense, we check the temperatures into the usual OMI zones (Outer Middle Inner): a correct camber angle on a given turn should teoretically build up the same amount of heat in all three segments. By logging the telemetry data, I compared the increase in temperature in the OMI zones between: straight, braking and cornering.
The two data points are with "high camber" (-4.8 -3.8) and "low camber" (-3.5 -3.0) for the left tyres only.
With the "high camber" setup, comparing before and after cornering, the temperature of the inner part of the front tyre increases by 18.1C, against the 14.4C of the outer: it's 3.7C more on the front inner surface. Similar situation at the rear with a temperature difference of 3.1C. I want to remind one more time that I'm not referring to the absolute temperature of the tyre surface, but the temperature increase before and after cornering.
With the "low camber" setup, the temperature build up at the front tyre is 2C more on the inner surface than the outer.
If I don't consider outer temperature build up, then I can't tell the difference between the two camber configs, as the heat is evenly spreaded on the inner and middle part of the tyre surface. I can't get to a useful point here, I feel stuck in a dead end and I still can't get a clear idea of this situation. Is this a correct approach on the subject? The car felt fine in both configurations, the laptimes were identical, and as you can see from the data, the absolute temperatures of the tyres surface are exactly the same, just spreaded differently. Any help on this?
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