Positive vs negative camber: do the Brits do it the other way around?

[N55_BBM]

Was watching Top Gear Season 17 here (forgot which episode) and they're making fun on Jeremy for having his legs bent like this: / \

They called this "positive camber". forgot how they got there, i think they might've been talking about Jeremy's merc?

Anyway, was wondering if the brits do it the other way around or if they got it wrong or what...

[AW128i]

If / \ represents the front tires, then they were talking about negative camber, with the idea being that when in a turn and the outer suspension is compressing, the suspension geometry moves from negative camber toward neutral. This is beneficial because it keeps the largest contact patch with the road as possible. Adding positive camber would hurt handling.

[bogart]

Originally Posted by AW128i

If / \ represents the front tires, then they were talking about negative camber, with the idea being that when in a turn and the outer suspension is compressing, the suspension geometry moves from negative camber toward neutral. This is beneficial because it keeps the largest contact patch with the road as possible. Adding positive camber would hurt handling.

+1

[fourtailpipes]

i watched that the other day. the brits don't do it backwards... TG just doesn't know much about cars haha

[N55_BBM]

Originally Posted by fourtailpipes

i watched that the other day. the brits don't do it backwards... TG just doesn't know much about cars haha

lol that explains it because they were definitely talking about the wheels being like this / \ , and they were calling it positive camber

[N55_BBM]

oh look at this, the problem IS top gear's presenters...:

http://www.reddit.com/r/TopGear/comm...camber_s17e02/
http://www.uklegacy.com/forums/index...owtopic=115373

it was season 17 episode 2

[xerox445]

You believe everything you see on tv?

[bogart]

If you look at some old racecars in the 60's they had positive camber. It was a carryover from the days of horse and carts, really. Look at any picture of an old carriage and you will see very marked positive camber. The reason was to achieve 'correct' steering geometry - if the wheel sloped inwards towards the ground, a line drawn through the kingpin (which the wheel swivels on) could intersect a line drawn through the centre of the tyre at the ground (all as seen from the front). This results in zero leverage on the steering when the wheel hits a bump, and therefore no kickback at the wheel. It also makes the steering very light. Modern steering boxes are not easily reversible, so kickback is less of a problem, and it is now seen as much more important to have the outside (loaded) wheel vertical in a corner to get as flat a contact patch as possible. Static negative camber can achieve this. Bugatti period tyres were almost round in section so were hardly affected by camber.