Corner-balancing coilovers

[sneakypete]

Hi folks, I am about to buy some coilovers because I am stupid and want a harsh ride, so I could use some advice.

Here is my question: how did you corner balance your car to make sure that you had your coilovers set up properly left to right and front to rear? I know that an improperly corner-balanced car can make an otherwise perfect suspension setup worthless, but I don't have access to corner-balancing scales. Any tips?

 

[sneakypete]

(I may be stupid and want a harsh ride, but really I want them to keep my 225 tires from rubbing my fenders and to prevent my Racing Beat rear sway bar from snapping off any more end link mounting tabs.)

 

[njaremka]

corner balance is only beneficial on a track car. get the heights close, and you'll be all set.

 

[bikingpro5]

difficult to corner balance without the proper scales. My car was done when we first setup the coils but every little change that gets made means you need to do it again and i gave up since i change way to much on the car yearly. Like njarmka said its only really beneficial to tracked cars when you own the gear to do it.

 

[rit14623]

Unless you are racing, you don't need to corner balance the car.
Basically, the idea of corner weighting is to get as much traction by altering toe-in and camber so that there is the most contact patch from each tire. You could have ride height increased if you wanted to in order to change the contact patch.
So as you lower your suspension, your car ends up with negative camber. The tops of the tires are more inward. So at the bottom of the tire, it is getting a decreased contact patch at the outer edge of the tire. But, if your car is being raced on a track with a lot of turns, then, you may want negative camber, because as you turn your front wheels, you end up getting positive camber. So in that case, the tops of the tires are outward, and at the bottom of the tire, it is getting a decreased contact patch at the inner edge of the tire.
So, if you have negative camber with the wheels straight, then, you get 0-angle (or a non-positive) camber with the wheels turned, giving you more contact patch during a turn. If you are racing on a track with less turns, then less negative camber is beneficial to get more grip on the straights at the expense of decreased grip in the turns.

If you just want to make sure your tires don't rub the fenders with a decreased ride height, you may want to either roll the fenders or select a narrower wheel/tire combo.

 

[CR3 Motorsports]

BUT if you were looking to corner balance the car, try get with your local autocross group, I'm sure someone there could point you in the right direction.

 

[njaremka]

Unless you are racing, you don't need to corner balance the car.
Basically, the idea of corner weighting is to get as much traction by altering toe-in and camber so that there is the most contact patch from each tire. You could have ride height increased if you wanted to in order to change the contact patch.
So as you lower your suspension, your car ends up with negative camber. The tops of the tires are more inward. So at the bottom of the tire, it is getting a decreased contact patch at the outer edge of the tire. But, if your car is being raced on a track with a lot of turns, then, you may want negative camber, because as you turn your front wheels, you end up getting positive camber. So in that case, the tops of the tires are outward, and at the bottom of the tire, it is getting a decreased contact patch at the inner edge of the tire.
So, if you have negative camber with the wheels straight, then, you get 0-angle (or a non-positive) camber with the wheels turned, giving you more contact patch during a turn. If you are racing on a track with less turns, then less negative camber is beneficial to get more grip on the straights at the expense of decreased grip in the turns.

If you just want to make sure your tires don't rub the fenders with a decreased ride height, you may want to either roll the fenders or select a narrower wheel/tire combo.

um, no. you are talking alignment, not corner balance. corner balance has to do with vehicle weight at each wheel, nothing to do with camber/caster/toe.

 

[rit14623]

um, no. you are talking alignment, not corner balance. corner balance has to do with vehicle weight at each wheel, nothing to do with camber/caster/toe.

You are right. My bad.

To the OP, you must have a scale to get the weight at each wheel.

To njaremka, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but corner weighting as it applies to auto racing, is an attempt to get weight evenly distributed over all four wheels. When a car is racing, the heat build up is more extreme compared to normal driving. And so if there is more weight over the front tires, those tires will get hotter and lose traction faster than the rear wheels and vice versa. Serious racers will get a tire temperature gauge and log tire temps between laps. They can find out if some tires are getting more hot than other tires and the logged results are a way for the team to focus on which corners are cauing problems. I think, if I recall correctly, that the adjustable spring perches on coilovers act like balance points. When you raise one spring, it puts (or shifts) more weight on the other springs. If you think of four people carrying a sofa, when the guys in the front start to raise their end higher, the guys in the back feel more weight. So, height adjustments for coilovers is not to get a lowered-look, but to balance the corners.

 

[brandini]

Corner weighting is not the same as corner balancing.

Weighting means moving weights/components to adjust for what the balancing cannot.

Balancing means:
put car on scales
use adjustable height suspension to lower or raise as needed to make diagonals add up evenly
math--> FR+RL=FL+RR
Keeps the car handling neutral and balances the force the car is putting on the wheel so that it's not all NASCAR style uneven and really wants to turn one direction but resists in the other.
Once you've done this you can opt to corner weight, so in our car you start by moving the battery to the trunk, then you re-corner balance.