[IH8Rice]

great idea for performance purpose....almost reinventing the tire
adding negative camber into the tire itself to prevent wear by too much negative camber in the suspension with a normal tire

video with inventor:
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/car-parts/camber-tires/

http://www.cambertire.com/

 

[Quo Fan]

Interesting. The guy said it would also improve the handling of minivans, too.

 

[Mr Jones]

Very interesting. It's like auto leveling... but for tires. I understand the performance aspect, but for the everyday guy (minivans included), wouldn't it just be cheaper in the long run to fix the camber. Heck, most of the time all you need are some shimz.

 

[IH8Rice]

wouldn't it just be cheaper in the long run to fix the camber. Heck, most of the time all you need are some shimz.

its not about fixing the issue with something like a minivan, its about adding more camber to your tire instead of the suspension to prevent premature wear caused by adding moar shimzzz.

 

[stoney]

very interesting. This would be awesome for those suspension designs that have max limits on lowering.

 

[Leppah]

I used to autocross a ton, and when i did, i often wondered if something like that would work. At the time I was racing, the cars that were dominating STS and SM were civics. They had tons of camber. It was the 90's civs. THey all had double wishbone suspension, so the lower they went, the more camber they got. They handled awesome, but went through tires like mad. It'll be pretty cool if these actually work. But, if you put them on a minivan, wouldn't you have to get an alignment to add camber to your vehicle so the tires would wear correctly?
Sorry, i don't know if this was covered in the ad. Haven't had a chance to read it yet.

 

[Toshi]

These are no fix for struts that have too much camber variation throughout the travel

 

[Tomasis]

it is good idea.. like UST for dh tires .. it'd be interesting to see which tires manufacturers will hook up for that.

 

[greatwhite]

I watched the video, and maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't this whole idea defeat the purpose of adding camber to your suspension?

On square tires you add negative camber so that when your tire is under load and the suspension compresses the width of the tire is contacting the road surface. With these you add negative camber and than use the camber tire to make full contact with the road initially. But when the suspension is under load the full width of the tire won't be contacting the road anymore.

 

[jekyll991]

I watched the video, and maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't this whole idea defeat the purpose of adding camber to your suspension?

On square tires you add negative camber so that when your tire is under load and the suspension compresses the width of the tire is contacting the road surface. With these you add negative camber and than use the camber tire to make full contact with the road initially. But when the suspension is under load the full width of the tire won't be contacting the road anymore.

That's what I was thinking.

However I do see a use for this for the nutjobs who lower their car so much they have to run negative camber to not rub their quarter panels off.

 

[Leppah]

You mean like these guys?

Looks like the fad from VW's is finally hitting the rice cars. I remember seeing the guys in Europe with their Rabbits and golfs creating this look. It was at least 9 years ago. Gotta get that tire stretched on so it's super close to the fender for some reason. I guess it looks cool when it's parked.

 

[blackohio]

Actually stretching tires in europe has more to do with federal mandates stating tire tread cannot exceed fender width. Guys in europe wanted to run wider wheels but knew the tires associated would get them into trouble so they would stretch the tires so the tread was still within the fender.

Aesthetically I think a bit of stretch works well with alot of fender designs especially when poking wheels out a little bit. If you can get the tire's stretch to follow the contour of the fender out to the wheels lip then it flows nicely down. Too much poke, and too much stretch creates a visual shelf which isnt to appealing. Just the right amount flows out and down perfectly.

This to me is about right from a functional/aesthetic standpoint. I couldnt get much lower due to the cabrio's metal sideskirts and coilovers than didnt lower much at all. But the feel from fender down was just about right.

the end result was this, until I got new coilovers.

 

[Leppah]

^^^^^^^^Very interesting. I guess that would explain why there were so many of those Euro guys that were just extending the lip on the stock fender so it would stick out a little more. Makes sense after what you just explained.
I remember seeing a few guys that went a little far with the stretching. A rabbit or golf 1 with 13x9 and 155 wide tires. Bleh.

 

[blackohio]

Yeah the pulled fenders was kinda a **** you to the law I guess.

All things within reason can be made to look great. small wheels on a bunny car look great. One of these cars I love, one of them im not so hot on.

im not mad at this car at all.

 

[Leppah]

I like the lower one with the wider wheels. When i had my rabbit, wanted it to look cool like one of those, but it wouldn't be able to handle the roads around here being that low. The oil pan on the 2.0 block was pretty low.
I like how they make them look RWD with the staggered look.

Are those ronals on the bottom car? Mmmmm.

 

[blackohio]

bottom car is running Schmidt Th-Lines. A while that looks AWESOME in 12-14" diameters and ok in 15" and absolute **** in 16"

 

[IH8Rice]

my buddy had his tired stretched to the max.

kinda hard to tell in the pic:

 

[stevew]

^

fvck waterfest.

 

[IH8Rice]

^

fvck waterfest.

yeah, thats a old pic from 2005 i think

 

[blackohio]

guh I hate painted small bumpers on big door cars

 

[IH8Rice]

guh I hate painted small bumpers on big door cars

everything on that car was painted and smoothed out. everything.

 

[Sandwich]

I watched the video, and maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't this whole idea defeat the purpose of adding camber to your suspension?

On square tires you add negative camber so that when your tire is under load and the suspension compresses the width of the tire is contacting the road surface. With these you add negative camber and than use the camber tire to make full contact with the road initially. But when the suspension is under load the full width of the tire won't be contacting the road anymore.

basically. You add camber to get more cornering grip, amirite? So with these tires you're taking it away. And when you are under side load, you'll be effectively reducing the contact patch....I would think. I'm no auto racer, so yeah whatever.

 

[Leppah]

I'm having a hard time visualizing it. It seems like you can't really get much camber with conventional struts. Seems like you get more camber from cars with double wishbone suspension. If you get those tires, and you have conventional struts, i don't know if the contact patch of the tires would be completely on the ground. Even under load, unless you have suspension where the degree of camber actually goes up as the suspension compresses. The cars that I used to autocross were conventional strut designs and didn't seem to change much when it came to camber. You could get camber bolts to add a degree or two, or camber plates, but i don't know that they'd work with those tires. I could be way off though.

 

[kazlx]

If I'm looking at the numbers correctly, there's not much difference between the Yoko Advans that come OE and the 'street'compound tires.

Although treadwear ratings aren't really comparable between manufacturers, comparing the Advan to an R compound tire is apples and oranges...and the camber tire looks like it may be softer than the Advan, which means shorter life and not really much benefit on acceleration and braking or lateral g's....

I guess I fail to see the reason to buy the camber tires off the numbers from their chart...

 

[blackohio]

I'm having a hard time visualizing it. It seems like you can't really get much camber with conventional struts. Seems like you get more camber from cars with double wishbone suspension. If you get those tires, and you have conventional struts, i don't know if the contact patch of the tires would be completely on the ground. Even under load, unless you have suspension where the degree of camber actually goes up as the suspension compresses. The cars that I used to autocross were conventional strut designs and didn't seem to change much when it came to camber. You could get camber bolts to add a degree or two, or camber plates, but i don't know that they'd work with those tires. I could be way off though.

On say a mcpherson strut front VW with a torsion rear as suspension travels there really isnt any camber gain/loss however there is caster change throughout the travel range (which these tires would help.)

I can see cars that have massive camber changes benefiting from these tires. My Q45 would eat tires alive dumped. 4200 lbs of car and - camber will do that. One thing not really touched on its that these are un-rotate-able. At least running a standard tire with loads of - camber you can still rotate to the un-worn area.

If these were cheap I could see their benefit but since theyll probably cost a grip I see these as a fad

 

[Toshi]

Uh, you really think those McPherson struts up front don't have "any camber gain/loss" throughout their travel? It's a single pivot point and a short lever arm: of course there's going to be camber change…

 

[blackohio]

Uh, you really think those McPherson struts up front don't have "any camber gain/loss" throughout their travel? It's a single pivot point and a short lever arm: of course there's going to be camber change…

I never said that, I said there is very little change. Which there is. Enough to warrant a tire designed around X degree of negative camber somewhat useless considering camber changes can be lessened by stiffer springs to reduce bodyroll in cornering or building positive or negative camber into the static position of the suspension (as I understand how macpherson suspensions work - which I could be wrong)