Suspension Corner Weighting

[vwdubs 0]

I am trying to find a company near Oxford or Midlands area at least who do Corner Weighting. Can anyone please provide me with contcat names and numbers?

[vwdubs 0]

After much calling around I have found this to be a very uncommon thing nowadays..

 

Apparently it can leave the supension looking pretty unbalanced as they take all weights into consideration and obviously one side is much heavier (petrol tank, my fat ass etc etc)

[H8RRA 0]

!!!??? i've got a cornerweight gauge but i'm too far away from you - i wouldn't agree with what you've been told mind - i'm sure theres a reasonable compromise to be had - get a fat arsed bint in the passenger seat and dual petrol tanks :)

[bix 0]

What is cornerweighting(prolly a silly q), and why do it?

[H8RRA 0]

for coilovers generally - people stick them on for cosmetic reasons generally not appreciating that the differing heights can seriously effect handling ie. the height effecting the weight on each wheel and therefore potential imbalance - hence, i've got coilovers and a cornerweight gauge to weigh the weight on each corner

[Henny 0]

Corner weighting involves putting the car onto 4 sets of scales (one under each wheel!) and adjusting the height of the coil-over springs to give an equal weight left/right on the suspension and a certain ratio of the weight front/back.

 

It is really only possible on adjustable height coil-over suspension.

 

I had J-DUB done when I fitted my supersport coilovers and it totally transformed the handling. I had it done with a half full tank and with someone the same weight as me sat in the drivers seat. Seeing as I wanted it setup for how I normally drive her, and most of my milage (21K per year!) was on my own with around half a tank of fuel, that kinda made sense to me! :lol:

 

Basically, the reason you do it is to make the car handle as well as it possibly can. If the car is (or as near as damn it) perfectly balanced meaning that cornering is the same going either way and it's very predictable.

 

When mine was done, it actually looked BETTER than before. The Corrado is pretty well designed in terms of where the heavy components are, so it looked balanced and sat almost level after it was setup.

 

As to where to get it done, have a look around for some race prep specialists... I'm lucky in that I have 2 within 300yards of my house, both of whom can do corner weighting... 8)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

So you literally weigh the weight of the car from each corner? Or is that some vague term that actually means you raise the suspension at the side where the car droops in relation to the opposite side? I can't see how you can change the 'weight' of the car at each wheel by simply winding the coilovers up or down....or have I misunderstood?

 

EDIT, Henny came in there as I was typing this. Cheers mate.

 

Still can't see you can change the weight, it's dead mass surely?

 

On mine I just raised the driver's side to match the height of the pass side as the VR engine tends to tilt the car down slightly. That feels perfect to me, not sure sticking them on the scales is going to drastically improve that tbh. All 4 arches are set precisely the same.

[bix 0]

I think its more balancing the weight on each wheel!

[Henny 0]

if you raise the front left ride height, you move the center of gravity of the car and so more weight will go onto the rear and right side of the car.

 

Think of it this way, when you jack up the whole front of the car, you don't lift 50% of the weight of the car do you? the weight moves backwards onto the rear wheels so you're actually only supporting a smaller percentage of the weight of the car on the jacks.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Cheers for clarifying....

 

We're only talking tilting by a few mm, you're not sticking sand bags in the rear arches or anything. I don't think it's going to have a profound effect, unless the car wasn't setup properly to begin with....probably why as the original poster said, not many places do it any more.

[Henny 0]

The corrado was built VERY well balanced - hence why it was always known as a brilliantly handling car. Lobbing coilovers on and setting them up by corner weighting can tweak that balance enough to make a significant difference, especially when compared to a set that have just been lobbed on and set by eye. Just about ALL race cars (Rally, road or track) use some form of corner weighting to get the balance correct.

 

Not many domestic/kwikfit style garages do it any more, but you'll find that quite a few specialists still do it... 8)

[Joe M 0]

Have a read of this, should clear up everything you need to know about corner weighting:

 

http://grmotorsports.com/news/012005/un ... hp#more-76

 

In a road car its not really about making the weight the same left and right, its about setting up the cross weight to 50%

[Henny 0]

yup, I had 50/50 left to right, and 60/40 front to rear on J-DUB.

 

IIRC, as standard the Corrado is around 50/50 left to right and 55/45 front to rear.

 

Nice find with that website there Joe M, 8)

[H8RRA 0]

you can use scales on each corner or use a gauge like wots i have :) its in the background pic on the charger pic i posted - which i can't find at the mo - but its the same arrangement as this

 

 

 

AHA!!!! Found it!!!!