Saw this posted by Big Bear Tire. They have a DOT street legal version in prototype, so don't know the specifics on size (or cost). But it seemed like it'd be something interesting to discuss here considdering the nature of the tire and how it would benifit or harm our car's handling. And since many of us here race/autoX and/or run more camber than stock it seems like it'd fit nicely here. That, and I'd be interested to find out from people here (willing to try it) what they think and how it performs to them.

http://www.cambertire.com/

Supposedly the tire has 2 degrees of camber built into it. This would in essence reduce the tread wear on our tires, reduce noise (if that ever was an issue with S2000 drivers) and improve fuel mileage due to reduced rolling resistance.

But thinking about how a cone rolls (as this tire is in fact a cone rather than a cylinder), I would think that rolling resistance would be the same if not more. Either that, or you would have to compensate by more toe-out, but I don't think that would make any difference either. The main thing is the inside tread will always be moving slower at point of contact to the road than the outside tread. So you'd literally be DRAGING the inside tread the whole time you are driving. Isnt this the whole reason they invented the differential for turning?

 

My initial thought is it looks like 2 degrees of positive camber in the tire to counteract 2 degrees of negative camber in typical performance suspension setups. I don't see how that helps any more than just changing your camber to zero if that's the effect you desire???

 

No, it is negitive Camber, so you need -2.0 degrees in your suspension setup to use these tires.

 

I disagree. It seems clear from the pictures that if you placed these tires on a camber neutral car you'd have the effect of placing more pressure/weight on the outside of the tire and the inside of the tire would be relieved of the car's weight. In essence, these tires on a neutral camber setup would have the same effect as a 2 degree positive camber. On a -2 degree camber suspension setup the weight is spread evenly across this tire. That's not gonna help you in a corner when centrifugal force pulls the weight to the outside. Does that make sense?

 

Besides, I think most tire manufacturers understand that performance cars have negative camber, and the effects of cornering on tires. Go to www.potenza.com and check out the interactive technology features of the RE-11. It's pretty cool, IMO.

I think this one may be worth of this thread:
https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=639959

 

The Too Good To Be True Mod thread . . . hmm. I don't know if this would be worthy of that specifically if people have won semi-major races on camber tires. But that is going strictly off of their testimonials, so I cannot verrify the legitimacy of those claims.

What I DO know is the BBT has a prototype street tire in their shop. A number of people have been asking about it including me. I've got tons of tread left on my Z1 Star Specs so I have no incentive to get these.

I would agree that most tire manufacturers do understand that performance cars have negative camber. What this is trying to do is get around the negatives of negative camber while keeping the benefits.

I'm simply questioning weather this is an effective way to do it, and if the tire performs like it should, disregarding the company's claims. I generally don't care what a company claims as it's almost always puffed up to the point of just below false advertising.

 

This would obviously be for a car that is not used for performance.

The reason a car has negative camber is so the tire is at 0 camber in a turn, or close to it.

This tire, in theory would put the car at positive camber in the corner, because, in theory the car was at 0 deg camber when it was going straight.

Tire would be terrible for performance.

Unless Kamron is right and its adding camber, so you put your car at zero and it gives you -2. So it could give you more camber, but even then it seems dumb. Its not good for handling.

It would be good for the idiots that like to have flush cars with camber. So dumb.

 

All it's doing is making for a larger contact patch, but you do have have to run -2 camber in order for the tires to "fit" properly and to give you the large contact patch, otherwise you would essentially be running the car with positive camber.

I would venture to say that if the tire manufacturers thought this was a wise idea they would have done this years ago.

 

That's not what I'm saying, I'm saying the opposite. If your car was at zero, you'd effectively have +2, not -2 camber with these tires. You have effectively zero camber with these tires if you suspension is set to -2.

Other than that, I agree with what you said.

 

This is what I was trying to say. Thanks!