Camber tires the next big thing?

[Sticky]

An inventor by the name of John Scott may have come up with a solution that allows most of the benefits of negative camber while maintaining treadwear and safety. Scott designed a tire with a slightly larger circumference on the outer sidewall than the inner sidewall. This allows the suspension to be adjusted with plenty of negative camber while maintaining the contact patch of the tire.

[milkt]

Not going to work and look... Gay Leno is there.

[GG///M3]

i'll try a free set.

[oddjob2021]

sounds like it could work, as long as you have a whole set. i'd try a set on a local track to see if i can beat my best time that is unless these things are grossly overpriced.

[milkt]

Camber is NOT what causes that uneven wear they are mentioning.

[GG///M3]

you lie or they?

[milkt]

you lie or they?

I'm not selling anything.

I have run 1.5 deg and 2.5 deg camber rear and front, respectively,
WITH A PROPER ALIGNMENT
and have had no wear issues.

I imagine if you decide to try 4 to 5 degrees of camber,
there may be wear issues,
but a car doesn't need that.

Proper alignment means that the technician who is doing it
it NOT IN A HURRY to get to his other work.
He is NOT in a hurry or lazy to do it right.
This is generally what you get at Tire Kingdom, Tires Plus, Tire Rapauge, etc

[milkt]

Improper toe is what kills a tire.

[BigM62]

In my case with E34, you cannot align the rear, only the front. But, I just remebered, Dinan has a rear camber kit.

[milkt]

In my case with E34, you cannot align the rear, only the front. But, I just remebered, Dinan has a rear camber kit.

Are all e34 rear suspensions geometrically the same? from 525s to 540s?

A buddy installed the KMAC poly camber kit on his Touring and he said he cussed and sweat and bled
and it still wasn't friendly adjustable.
I set my Touring down on Sports and Vogtlands and the camber is very nice.

[05m3smg]

how many years have tires been in the making? I dont think this will work/

[Sticky]

how many years have tires been in the making? I dont think this will work/

Sometimes the simplest solution is one no one applies because tire manufacturers get set in their ways and breaking that mold is "odd."

In theory, this should work well.

[Scorpion]

Interesting.

[milkt]

how many years have tires been in the making? I dont think this will work/

It won't.

[fstop7]

Werd, toe is what causes accelerated inner edge wear.

[SSDD]

Every educated person I have spoke to in regards to camber increasing tire wear agrees with Milkt- messed up or over aggressive toe ruins tires while aggressive camber does not.

[oddjob2021]

too much, or aggressive camber wears the inner side of the tire, and also you're losing foot-print. some camber is good, especially for a car that road-courses. toe of course is an important part of the equation but camber $#@!s your tires up if you just ride on 3+degrees neg or pos camber, even with perfect toe.

[Itsbrokeagain]

too much, or aggressive camber wears the inner side of the tire, and also you're losing foot-print. some camber is good, especially for a car that road-courses. toe of course is an important part of the equation but camber $#@!s your tires up if you just ride on 3+degrees neg or pos camber, even with perfect toe.

This.

Dans E93 was set at 2.6 in the rear due to the height issues we had. Even with proper toe he still ate the inside of the tires after a few thousand miles.

[Sticky]

This.

Dans E93 was set at 2.6 in the rear due to the height issues we had. Even with proper toe he still ate the inside of the tires after a few thousand miles.

So then do you feel these are a gimmick?

[oddjob2021]

thats not what he or i meant i dont believe sticky. it should wear the outer edge, with the camber tire, and since thats where its most thick, i think these have a possibility of working. think about it from a rear profile POV, with the camber tire vs reg tire, then think how the tire would behave on a turn, it kinda makes sense. its really hard to reinvent the wheel, but thats not what they're doing, they're reinventing the tire i would try some if they're not sold at a premium over reg tires, and report back results.

edit: if you read what i said, i wrote "too much or aggressive camber...". with 1.5 degrees or so of camber on these camber tires, they should in theory wear perfectly vs a regular tire with the same camber. and camber helps you in the corners, and the camber tire keeps the footprint you need on the exits and straights.

[Laloosh]

This.

Dans E93 was set at 2.6 in the rear due to the height issues we had. Even with proper toe he still ate the inside of the tires after a few thousand miles.

You need to get a better machine to align his car. I run -2.7 in the frotn and -2.5 in the rear. ITs been probablay 10k miles on these tires and the tires are wearing evenly. Camber DOES NOT wear tires. Toe does.

[SSDD]

I really feel tire pressure is an important factor as well. I'm not sure how accurate it is but the analogy used for me by someone was does a 10" tire last longer than a 9" because of the larger contact area?

[milkt]

This.

Dans E93 was set at 2.6 in the rear due to the height issues we had. Even with proper toe he still ate the inside of the tires after a few thousand miles.

Is that the ONE example you have seen of camber supposedly gobbling up tread?
Was it choppy or even wear toward the inside?

If the toe was allowed to simply be "within the specs" window,
that may have been the problem.
DEAD center is where it must be for minimal wear.

You need to get a better machine to align his car. I run -2.7 in the frotn and -2.5 in the rear. ITs been probablay 10k miles on these tires and the tires are wearing evenly. Camber DOES NOT wear tires. Toe does.

+1

2.5' is quite a bit of neg camber on the rear of a car,
but if you are able to rotate your tires and keep them at proper pressure
you will have fun
AND
look good doing it.

[Itsbrokeagain]

You need to get a better machine to align his car. I run -2.7 in the frotn and -2.5 in the rear. ITs been probablay 10k miles on these tires and the tires are wearing evenly. Camber DOES NOT wear tires. Toe does.

We have the top of the line Hunter Laser machine. Same one BMW uses.

His settings were not 'just in spec'. If you had looked at LMs alignment thread and saw my response there you would have known that I'm VERY anal about my specs. They have to be the same on each side.

I'll give you a rundown of dans car. E93s are heavy. 400lbs extra heavy to be exact. All over the rear wheels. Since there is no E93 specific kit for coil overs (until recently) we resorted to FKs for an e90 due to the spring rates being a little better than a coupe.

Even with his rear perches turned all the way down in an attempt to lift the back of the car up, it still sat tucking the tire partially. That's how low it was. When I was doing his alignment, my toe eccentric bolts were of very limited use due to the fact that when you start going beyond 2.2 degrees in the back, getting full use of your toe adjustment starts dropping exponentially the more camber increases...there simply is not enough adjustment at the extreme end of the spectrum.

Dans car orginally rolled on the rack with almost 3.1degrees camber in the rear. I pulled out as much as I could but because his suspension geometry was so wacked out at that ride height that I had to resort to using the camber adjustment to get toe to 0 out....anyone who does alignments knows that camber and caster affect toe so those get adjusted first...and this was NOT what I wanted to resort to doing.

So his camber setting were 2.8 and 2.6, with rear toe set to .10 on each side. Its actually less toe than recommended by BMW but I like running minimal toe at all times (I got 30k out of my rear run flats, wore perfectly even all the way across)

The only real solution was to raise the car back up in the rear to get the suspension geometry back into place. Koni double adjustable shocks and swift spring coil overs with rates and heights spec'd for the E93 should bring it back up to almost stock ride height and allow me to have more control over his alignment settings.

The car will be getting Velocity Motorcar toe arms sometime in the future for the simple fact they are all heim joint and no rubber. Less deflection and a more accurate and truer alignment.



Sorry for the long tangent reply. Hope I'm not offending anyone..