DILYSI Dave wrote:
ashrum wrote:
Here is a photo of our car.
Please explain the 45* of camber.
Its only 22 degrees. 
We were the lightest car at competition by a substantial margin (410 lb; everyone else ranges from 650 - 1200 lb) and it wasn't by accident. One of the ways we chose to reduce mass was by using small (10x3.5") wheels and equally small tires. By choosing them instead of wider wheels and Hoosiers (which cannot be fully utilized by these cars anyway...), we cut about 32 lb of rotating and unsprung mass, which is HUGE. The camber is there because that is the only way to get any lateral acceleration out of the tires. If we were to rely on slip angle like you would with normal car tires, the car would not have any grip.
When riding a bicycle or motorcycle, you turn by leaning rather than steering. What you are really doing is adding camber, which produces lateral acceleration, which makes you turn.
If you look at it as an ideal, static system, it makes more sense. From the tire's "point of view", there is no difference between this:
And our car. Ideally you have 100% weight transfer to the outside wheels and the overall loading of the tire is the same as if it were being used on a motorcycle or scooter, as it was intended.
The point is that it is extremely functional (during testing we pulled more than 1.1g on a 50' skid pad) and the car drives beautifully. The biggest difference from a normal car is that the turning radius is poor and the steering is extremely light (partially because of the design but also because the contact patch is very small).
Here's a short video if you are still reading/interested. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJ0i5ilyyg
)
give us a call so we can work out pick up)
