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- Tire
Pressure and Camber
For maximum grip, we need to optimize the tire's contact with
the road. This means having as much of the tire in contact with
the road as possible at all times.
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- If a
tire's inflation pressure is too low, the middle of the tire
will not press the road as hard as the outside edges. If it's
overinflated, the outside edges may not even touch at all. Using
tire temperatures, we can find the optimum pressure; the higher
the pressure, the harder the middle of the tire will work, and
the higher its temperature will be in relation to the edges of
the tire.
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- Note
that the important time for a tire is when it is on the outside,
since this is when it gets the most vehicle weight on it, and
therefore this is when it generates the most cornering force
- and most of its "heat."
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- Once
we've found a good tire pressure, we may find that the inner
and outer edges of the tire are showing different temperatures.
If the inner edge of the tire is higher than the outer, than
the inside edge is doing too much work. We must lean the top
of the tire out a little so the outer edge will be doing more
work. We call this adding positive camber. If the outer edge
is too hot, we'll change towards more negative camber.
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- Since
tires always distort a little under cornering, and tend to lift
their inside edges, we'll almost always have some negative camber.
The only exception is on ovals, where sometimes we will run a
little positive camber on the left wheels, since they are always
turning left and therefore their outer edge is always to the
inside of the corner.
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