2nd gen Corner Balancing

 

The main advantage of using Adjustable coil overs (besides changing ride height) is to corner balance the car.

Think of a 4 legged stool. If you shorten one leg, there would be less or no weight on it.

For best Accel, braking, and handling traction. You want 25% of the total car weight on each wheel. Of course this is almost impossible on a non race car. But you can get close, and you can set it up some other ways too.

By having weird weight distributions, you could cause the the car to understeer one way, and oversteer the other. Or with little weight on one wheel. It will always lock up under braking.

In order to do this you need a set of Car corner scales. These are very expensive and it might be hard to find someone who has a set to use/rent. Or a shop that does it. If you are having problems try going out to a local race track or auto cross race. And I'm sure you'll find someone that will know.

The main brain of the scale system.

The first step is to get your car to race/driving conditions. Take out your spare, seats, etc., and put in your harness, fill tank to where you would have it. Basically have the car the exact way that it will be during the race (for race car) on in normal street trim if it's just a street car.

Next step is to check and set your tire pressures. Put them to where you would have them while racing.

3rd is to unbolt the front and rear sway bar endlinks (only one side needed) (the sway bars pull/push weight from side to side and will effect readings)

Set up the scales on a *perfectly* level ground. *Any* change in scale heights will throw off the readings. Best to have a set of ramps in front so you can roll the car off and onto the scales.

Mine was done on a lift, which made it very easy to get the endlinks off, as well as raise the car to make adjustments. The shop guy told me it was perfectly level when locked into place (the lift is used for alignments too). but be careful as I'm sure most are not.

First the Base weigh in. Roll it onto the scales and get into the car (remember it's gota be the way it is while driven, and that means the drivers weight too!) And have someone get the numbers down.

The basic idea is if you raise the ride height at one corner (make the leg longer), you will add more weight to that corner by taking it away from the others (mainly the one across from it).

roll it off the scales before you start jacking and adjusting height to prevent wear and damage to the scales.

The common way of corner weighting is to match the cross diagonal weights. So the LF+RR = RF+LR weight

there is a good write up Here

My final Numbers were (lbs) (with full interior, 3/4 tank, and full stereo)

LF 816........733 RF

LR 844.......791 RR

So mine is off by 30lbs. We probably could have gotten it closer with a bunch more tinkering, but it gets hard when it's close. Also being a Street car I doubt I'd notice any difference between this and perfect. The left side is of course heavier from the driver.

 

Last thing is to bolt the sway bars back up. This is where you really need Adjustable sway bar endlinks (racing beat or Mazda trix). When you put the links back on you adjust the length so there is no preload on the bar with the car's weight on it. I don't have them *yet*... So I needed to put some good pressure pulling down on the bar to get the endlink on. That right there probably changes the weights another 30lbs or so... Making the whole thing kinda useless till I get some new endlinks.

After you're done you will need to get the car re aligned.