First and foremost, I have to give a HUGE thanks to John at Camber Tire for the opportunity to test out and review what is sure to change how we look at tire design in the future. John Scott, owner and founder of Camber Tire has quite literally reinvented tire technology as we know it today. Are you sick and tired of trashing a otherwise set of perfectly good tires because the inside tread blocks are worn down to cords? Are you tired of changing your camber settings for track day use, only to change it all back again for daily driving? Would you go to the track more often if you didn't wear your expensive tires out so quickly? Well if you're like me, and all of the above applies, keep an open mind with what I'm about to tell you, and I think you'll agree this is the future of tire technology.
In case you're like me, and haven't heard of Camber Tire, or what the company and John Scott are about, let me give you a little background. Twelve years ago, John was a highly successful business man who one day was inspired by the sight of a severely overloaded Lexus sedan with excessive rear wheel/tire camber. Instead of running vertically, the tops of the rear tires were tipped and sharply inward. While most of us would have moved on with our day, John was convinced there was something he could do about it. He then put pen to paper as they say, and came up with the very first "constantly decreasing diameter tire" aka, the Camber Tire. And so US Patent 5975176 was issued.
And now that we have a brief company background, let me give you some of the technical aspects of just what we're talking about here. Camber tire technology is based on a simple concept. Vehicle suspensions operate in way that during cornering the geometry changes so that a tire no longer sits flat on the surface of the road. The Camber tire concept is that during cornering and maneuvering the vehicles suspension is allowed to act in a normal way, but the tire remains in complete contact with the tarmac. Having a greater tire contact patch allows for more grip. In result, vehicles are able to corner faster, safer, while experiencing less uneven tire wear. Vehicles equipped with more camber from the factory often experience inner tire wear. Using a Camber tire on vehicles like this will increase tire life as well as handling on the track, and that's where Camber tire technology really shows.
1. "Active Morphing Variable Tread Depth Technology" by Cambertire LLC Giving you rubber where u need it most allowing the tires to wear into what the car wants without shortening the life of the tire, thus "Active Morphing"
2. "Rockers" giving you additional handling traction stability safety and tire shape control over and above EVERY other tire design, also allowing more width when in a turn under tire carcass swing and distortion by Rockering over <like an outrigger> without creating more rolling resistance on the straights <best of both worlds and also applicable for square tires for vehicles like say the solid rear axle on a Mustang or truck etc...> Rockers also allow more contact patch under braking without the extra drag on straights etc...BEAUTIFULLY simple and effective
3."Asymmetrical Helical Tread And Void Technology" completely unique screw/barber pole type tread design gives more void on the inside to very effectively evacuate water with narrower tread ribbon and as the ribbon winds around the tire circumferentially it gets wider and the voids gets thinner effectively reducing tread squirm/distortion under side loading and in the outer region of the tire where loads are greatest in a turn. ALSO the unbroken tread ribbon give much better continuity of side loaded strength compared with broken/traditional tread blocks while of course reducing/removing tread noise/hum and completely removing the need for tread length variation common to normal tires. Helical treads also create a wiping scenario moving water to the underside of the car OR the outside depending on the direction of the "screw".
Using a 3 or 4 degree tire allows for the suspension to have an aggressive camber stance which is normally done for cornering and handling stability, however, tires without camber built in lose much of there contact patch with this procedure. The Camber tire corrects for this! Racers can camber amounts safely up to 5 degrees without sacrificing tire life, the benefits on the track are nearly endless! Our innovation didn't stop with just adding camber, we looked deeper into cornering and discovered that tire "roll" also caused a loss of handling ability. To compensate for this, we added in what we call a "rocker" on both the inner and outer corners of the tire tread pattern. As a tire rolls" side to side from cornering g-forces, the shelf offers extra contact on the rolling edge resulting in skid pad results exceeding 1G on a street legal tire!
And keep in mind ALL this initial testing was done with the very first Camber Tire they ever made...and with ONLY 2 degrees. And this is exactly why I'm looking forward to testing there all new 4 degree tires out on the track! I can only imagine how well it's going to handle having so much more of the rubber on the road as they say, and not to mention being able to run negative 4/5 degrees......it should be nothing short of amazing.
And as usual with my test and review threads, this is going to be a 2-3 part series. I'll be documenting from when the parts arrived, installation, and then obviously, and most important.....STREET/TRACK TEST AND REVIEW. John will be chiming in when needed if you have any technical/manufacturing related questions, but if there's any thing you want to see, and or questions you may have, please by all means just ask. And for now, here's some pictures I took today while unpacking everything and getting the first set mounted up. Thanks for taking the time to read this over, and if you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask.
- Jeremy@SSP
.
