[Dean]

When you tip(negative camber) and compress a cylindrical tire, what do you think happens? It acts like a cone. The outer edge has to move faster or inner edge slower and/or deflect and generate heat/wear.

It sounds like from the angles he is talking about, you are just changing from a -1 degree to a +1 degree cone. Wear should be similar in either case, you are just changing what is preloaded.


Tire dynamics are not well understood especially by me, but I can understand where moving the preload form the inner to outer edge might improve all sorts of things.

Suspension designers have been trying to maximize wear, performance, noise, etc with cylindrical tires forever with many trade offs.

Negative camber is supposed to lay the tire flatter under cornering load to increase contact area on the outer tire and minimize roll under of the sidewall. One of the problems with it as we have all experienced is if you change input to quickly, the tire can start to slip before the outer edge can grip since you only have the smaller inner contact patch. You also have the other negative of the inner tire's contact patch getting very small.

I am guessing is that by changing the geometry and characteristics of the outer sidewall itself to minimize roll under and have the most important outside edge preloaded that you might see substantial improvement in initial traction at turn in or in emergency maneuvers. You also would not loose contact patch on the inside.

In effect, you are increasing the spring rate of the outer edge of the tire which could be very helpful.

I am not saying this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, far from it. In a perfect world, we would get the suspension, wheel and the tire folks together and potentially build the perfect combination for a given set of circumstances. If you put the suspension back at zero camber, what tire design works best? Maybe we need wheels that are 1" larger on the outer edge than inner edge?

Just because tires have always been cylinders doesn't mean that is the best shape for them. Asymmetrical and directional tires are now very common, why not asymmetrical sidewalls? I applaud the guy for thinking outside the box and challenging conventional wisdom.