Build A Faster Car - helping drivers engineer

Some cars just never seem to have enough camber to get even tire wear across the tire's tread when driven at its limit. Why is it that a car with only 3 degrees of body roll can sometimes need 4 degrees of negative camber just to keep the tire perpendicular to the ground while cornering? This is counter-intuitive, as 3 degrees of body roll only should need 3 degrees of correction- or less, if the car's suspension geometry is good. This article explores that "if" and shows how to improve your dynamic camber curve on a car with a strut-based front suspension.

The camber angle is the angle at which your tires lay relative to the vertical axis of your car. Assuming your chassis is level, it is also the angle at which your tires lay relative to perpendicular to the ground. A tire that is perfectly parallel to the chassis' vertical axis (and thus perpendicular to the ground) is said to have zero camber, whereas tires angled inwards towards the chassis are said to have negative camber. Camber is one of the most important aspects of an alignment because it greatly affects tire grip.