Camber

What is Camber?

Camber is the angle of the tops of the wheels from straight up and down. Leaning in is Negative Camber, leaning out is Positive Camber.

As a car turns, the chassis rolls. As the car rolls, this causes the tires to lean over towards the turn, causing less tire to come in contact with the ground (at 0deg Camber). So to compensate, we add a few degrees of negative Camber. When the same car rolls, it rolls up on to the negative Cambered tire, now setting the tire at 0deg, or the largest possible contact patch the tire can have. As we all know, the larger the contact patch, the more tire in contact with the ground, and the most possible traction you can have.

Giving one end of the car less Camber gives that end less traction. For instance, if your car is loose (oversteer), you could either add a degree of rear Camber, or take out a degree of front Camber.

While positive Camber is not normally recommended, I have seen some off-roaders us it. This helps get traction to the INSIDE wheel while cornering. I haven't used this myself, so I can't tell you from experience if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

2° to 3° of negative Camber is the norm for most vehicles.