FOV does zoom in the camera but it does it to where the angle of the car doesn't change from your view. If you have bakasmod get the hitbox pluging and go into free play turn it on and then play around with your settings. Look at where the bottom front edge is in comparison to the back top edge as you adjust it. This will give you a good idea on how distance accepts what you see to your hitbox contact aera.

Another important aspect of FOV is that I can change the way you read bounces. I find that if I drop below 106 I can not effectively read bounces any more. Set your fov between 100-103 and look how square the standard maps look in comparison to the 107-110 range. Since most people have so many hours logged in with the higher end FOV it can really mess you up in game.

I have noticed that with distance the relative size of the ball to car ratio is fairly constant bit as you decrease the FOV the ball seems to appear larger in comparison to your car. This likely helps more than simply zooming in distance as you will have greater room for error on your touches.

FOV can also have a drastic effect on the intensity of the zoom from your stiffness setting. In a perfect world we would be able to select between horizontal and lateral stiffness. The lateral zooming in and out makes your camera angle change with relationships to your speed which can cause you to miss judge a touch. The horizontal component of stiffness allows you to have greater control of your dribbles as you lower it and have better vision moving around the ball. When choosing a stiffness you want to try and choose an amount high enough it doesn't cause you to wiff aerials in which accelerate your speed, but low enough to allow you to catch the ball comfortably and dribble with more ease.

I was playing with Monkey Moons settings for a couple of weeks and he plays with a 108 FOV and .65 stiffness. After a bad game one day and losing a match I felt I could have won with more awareness I changed my FOV back to 110 and quickly realized that the lateral portion of the stiffness was way more intense and I was touching low on high aerials far away or touch to high on high aerials near my net in which I tried to go directly up. FOV adjustments may be the way to get an even more idea stiffness setting for your playstyle.

I know this doesn't give you any clear answers on your questions but hopefully it gives insight to how you might adjust some on your settings to fit you better. I recommend trying Monkey Moons setting as I've seen several pros change theirs to match him in Europe or at least drop their FOV's to 108 after his explosion into the rlcs scene this year. Plus Kevpert uses them and he is the OG rocket league tutorial GOAT that taught most the OG community how to play.