Camber Tuning

[mksetzer]

Ok so I was looking around but I couldn't find what I was looking for about camber adjustment. There are a lot of threads that have a bunch of camber settings but what I'm wondering is... How exactly does camber tuning in GT4 work?

Ok so I know that camber can be either negative or positive. (Negative having the top of the weels leaning in / \ and positive having the top of the weels leaning out \ /.) I know what camber is and how it works; I'm not confused about that. However, what I'm confused about is that the sliding bar for camber adjustment starts from 0 all the way on the left and gets higher in value as you move to the right. So... how do I set my wheels to have negative camber?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Oddball_E8]

you cant set them to a negative value in the game... sorry... for some reason PD must have thought noone would set it to a negative... why, i dont know...

 

[sukerkin]

Not to confuse the issue but PD actually assumed that noone would set positive camber (and rightly so).

The slider might read positive numbers but it's actually the amount of negative camber you're adjusting .

 

[Scaff]

Not to confuse the issue but PD actually assumed that noone would set positive camber (and rightly so).

The slider might read positive numbers but it's actually the amount of negative camber you're adjusting .

Spot on, negative camber only (shown by positive figures because thats not confusing is it).

The following is a useful basic guide to Toe, Caster and Camber (caster is not relevent for GT4), which you may find of use/interest.

Toe, Caster and Camber guide

The following extract helps to explain why positive camber is not desirable for our needs in the GT series.

While maintaining the ideal camber angle throughout the suspension travel assures that the tire is operating at peak efficiency, designers often configure the front suspensions of passenger cars so that the wheels gain positive camber as they are deflected upward. The purpose of such a design is to reduce the cornering power of the front end relative to the rear end, so that the car will understeer in steadily greater amounts up to the limit of adhesion. Understeer is inherently a much safer and more stable condition than oversteer, and thus is preferable for cars intended for the public.

 

[mksetzer]

Ahh awesome, thanks guys. I kinda thought thats how it worked but I wasn't too sure. Too bad it wasn't more clear in the game.

Thanks again hah! That really helps out a lot.

 

[Oddball_E8]

sorry... got that messed up a bit (well... it was 2am here when i wrote it)

 

[Scaff]

Ahh awesome, thanks guys. I kinda thought thats how it worked but I wasn't too sure. Too bad it wasn't more clear in the game.

Thanks again hah! That really helps out a lot.

sorry... got that messed up a bit (well... it was 2am here when i wrote it)

No problem guys, as long as its all sorted now, thats what counts. I've found that Camber and Toe settings are far more sensitive in GT4 (over 3) so they can make a big difference to how a car handles.

The link I supplied may be for real world tuning, but the basic principals work well in GT.

Have fun.

 

[rk]

Is there any logical reason why increasing camber would decrease straight line braking distance, all other things being equal?

 

[sukerkin]

:Can of Worms ... Open:

The only reason I could think of for that type of reaction would be that the camber is modelled to be "On" all the time i.e. that the contact patch increase applied in the straights as well as the corners ... mmm ... oh,dear .

 

[Scaff]

Is there any logical reason why increasing camber would decrease straight line braking distance, all other things being equal?

:Can of Worms ... Open:

The only reason I could think of for that type of reaction would be that the camber is modelled to be "On" all the time i.e. that the contact patch increase applied in the straights as well as the corners ... mmm ... oh,dear .

It is possiable, remember under braking you get weight transfer which is managed by the suspension. As the wheel does not travel up and down the suspension in a totaly straight line you get camber changes.

As we can only set camber in relation to a cars static position, it is possiable that a static camber change could be negated under the weight transfer caused by braking resulting in 0 degree camber.

The problem would be that you would have great difficultly predicting how, when or if this would occur. Also remember that any change in stopping distance you get through this will be minimal and almost impossiable to predict.

All this is of course theoretical, but it could happen, depending on the camber change a tyre goes through on a particular car when the suspension compresses.

Hope that makes sense, the article I linked to talks about how camber changes with suspension travel and may also help out.

 

[sukerkin]

As sensible as ever, Scaff, my friend.

Your point is well made and as we don't know how PD modelled camber change (or even how they catered for the different suspension types (if they did at all)) it's certainly true that we have no chance of working it out .

There is also the problem of accurately observing the behaviour of the car in reaction to camber alterations. I know that it's better than it was in GT3 in that you can actually feel some differences when you change the camber, especially in terms of the Front/Rear ratio, but it's still darned hard to figure if the change you made is doing you any good.

Time'll fix that I suppose. In GT3, even if I couldn't 'feel' the difference, I could tell within a lap if a suspension tweak I'd done was improving or hindering lap times because I'd done so many thousands of laps. All I need to do is spend as much time on GT4 as I did on GT3 .

 

[Scaff]

As sensible as ever, Scaff, my friend.

Your point is well made and as we don't know how PD modelled camber change (or even how they catered for the different suspension types (if they did at all)) it's certainly true that we have no chance of working it out .

There is also the problem of accurately observing the behaviour of the car in reaction to camber alterations. I know that it's better than it was in GT3 in that you can actually feel some differences when you change the camber, especially in terms of the Front/Rear ratio, but it's still darned hard to figure if the change you made is doing you any good.

Time'll fix that I suppose. In GT3, even if I couldn't 'feel' the difference, I could tell within a lap if a suspension tweak I'd done was improving or hindering lap times because I'd done so many thousands of laps. All I need to do is spend as much time on GT4 as I did on GT3 .

Thanks, and you are quite right and we have very little chance of knowing how well this is modelled in GT4. I did once read a post regarding GT3 (can't for the life of me remember when) by someone who said they had viewed the full suspension travel of a car they had put together with a hybred programme, and the suspension travel they say travelled what seemed to be a realistic path. If that is true of GT3 then it would leave me to suspect the same would be true for GT4. What I would give to talk with PD about this.

You're point about taking time to get used to the 'feel' of the cars, sounds strange to talk this way about a PS2 game, but for me one of the great things about the GT series is the way they capture the 'feel' of driving.

I'm just glad my last post made sense, had a real job writing that one in a way that was understandable, but then again I've got a cold so that my explain it.