Overview
The goal of setting your car's camber is to provide the maximum amount of traction by adjusting the angle of the tire to the ground to create the most effective footprint. In this article, we will explain what makes good setup, how to tell if you setup is working, how to adjust the setup on some common vehicles, and what tools you will need to adjust the camber.

Camber Basics

As we mentioned, the camber is the angle of the tire in relation to the ground. The picture here shows a 0⁰ camber setup meaning the tire is perfectly vertical providing a completely flat surface to the ground While you may initially think that this is the best configuration, the problem lays in taking turns. When the cargoes into a turn, the vehicle chassis will roll slightly lifting one edge of the tire off the ground resulting in a loss of traction when you need it the most. So, while a 0⁰ setting may work well for drag racing, it certainly is not efficient for circuit racing.

Another common misconception is that the obvious better setting is a positive setting as shown here. The problem with this is that the pressure on the tire during a turn is on the tire to the outside of the turn as well as the outside edge of that tire. Because of this fact, a positive camber setting will only give you the outside edge of the tire during a turn drasticallyreducing your traction

All these leads up to the optimal setting of a negative degree camber. With the wheel tilted in slightly, when the car goes into a turn and needs the most traction, the chassis roll causes more of the tire surface to contact the ground, thus improving traction through the turn. For high traction tracks, a typical setting is 2-3 degrees of negative camber. In low traction conditions, use less camber (0 - 2 degrees)

Adjusting Camber
The best means of adjusting the camber is to use a good quality camber gauge like the RPM Camber Gauge shown here. With this tool, you can set the camber setting you want and then adjust the camber until the wheels are at the exact angle you want for your track conditions.

The most common way to adjust the camber on a car is by adjusting the camber turnbuckles as shown on this Associated TC3 electric touring car. Turning the turnbuckle one direction will increase the camber, and turning the opposite way will reduce camber.

On other vehicles, the camber is adjusted by adjusting the pillow balls. By adjusting the pillow balls, the camber can be adjusted in or out as shown on this Traxxas T-Maxx truck.