Camber and toe settings are dynamic, they change as the kart bends and flexes.
So one of the things it is useful to know is what teh effect of sitting in your kart has on your static settings (ie on the stand, with no weight in it).
There are loads of explanations as to what camber and toe do on the web. Very briefly
Toe: Toe relates to the angle the wheels are out of parallel with each other. Setting small amounts of toe-in ( The wheels point slightly in towards each other) help to stabilise the steering, so you make less adjustments as you drive down the straight and the steering is dynamically stable, ie the kart tends to straighten itself. Setting small amounts of Toe out makes the kart dynamically unstable, you have to positively correct each error, left to itself the kart will get progressively more off track.
It is common to set the wheels toe out on the stand, because when you put it on the ground and sit in, it tends to add toe-in. Hence you need to know what difference to add.
Large amounts of toe, in or out, acts like a brake, you are grinding off the edges of the tyres.
Also, strictly speaking toe is expressed as the combined sum of both sides. so "2 out both sides" should be expressed as "4 out", it's not really important but you may find that if the manufacturer recommends setting 3 out static, it actually means 1.5 out each side (which sounds reasonable).
It the wet you may want to set more toe in, because it heats the tyre and settles the kart and you aren't usually getting to full revs because of the need to brake in slippery conditions.
Camber describes whether the tops of the tyres are closer together than the bottom (negative camber)or vice versa.
The idea is that as the kart corners, the forces on the wheel are trying to make the top lean outward (adding positive camber). The desired result is a kart that goes into the corner at -0.5. (the tyre distortion adds the extra 0.5 meaning that in the corner the tyre has the maximum amount of rubber on the track.
Of course, there are other factors to take into account. More force will affect the way the kart flexes and that will depend on driver weight and technique as well as the difference between static and dynamic measurement.
To see whether you have enough negative camber in use examine the tyres either measuring the heat across teh tyres, or look at the wear on the outside edge. If you have no wear on the outside edge (ie a ring of untouched rubber, then you have too much negative camber).
HTH
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Camber and toe setting by 'Raydaffurn' (06 Feb 2016 @ 12:10)
